Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRIT

For the County of Parts of Lindsey (Brigg Division), in the room of Tom Williamson, Esquire (Chiltern Hundreds).—[Mr. Whiteley.]

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AVIATION

Viking Aircraft (Engine)

Mr. John Lewis: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation what is the average number of engine hours for a Bristol Hercules engine as fitted to the Viking aircraft before requiring an overhaul.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): In the case of Vikings operated by British European Airways Corporation, 425 hours.

Mr. Lewis: Could my hon. Friend say why engines fitted to Dakota aircraft are able to run for a very much longer period before requiring an overhaul?

Mr. Lindgren: That is a totally different type of engine. The period between overhauls varies with the type of engine.

Elmdon Airport

Mr. Martin Lindsay: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation if he will expedite a decision upon the extent of the land he wishes to take over at Elmdon Airport, since this information is urgently required by the Birmingham Corporation.

Mr. Lindgren: The Birmingham Corporation has already been informed of the area of land which my noble Friend proposes to acquire at Elmdon Airport.

Executive Staffs, Scotland

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation whether he is aware of the concern felt by many people in Scotland at the impending redundancy of certain leading executives in Scottish aviation; and whether he will inform the House upon what basis decisions with regard to redundancy have been made.

Mr. Lindgren: I am aware that British European Airways Corporation have been examining their organisation with a view to effecting all possible economies in administration. It is, however, entirely a matter of management to decide what posts can be abolished and which staff should be retained.

Major Lloyd: Is the Minister aware that many people in Scotland are, unfortunately, associating this impending redundancy of very distinguished ex-airmen with the recent statement of a Scottish Socialist M.P., who said that people with Tory convictions employed in nationalised industries would find themselves redundant if they were not helpful? Is that the real reason?

Mr. Lindgren: I am not aware of the statement referred to. A reorganisation is in process arising from criticisms by the hon. and gallant Gentleman and his hon. Friends that the Corporations are over-weighted in regard to administrative and executive staff. Now that there is pruning, there still seems to be some objection.

Major Lloyd: With what safeguards?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Does the hon. Gentleman think that these Corporations are sufficiently well provided wits real experts and that at this stage they can dispense with these experts?

Mr. Lindgren: Yes, Sir. They are well staffed.

Mr. Scollan: Would it not be wiser for the Ministry to retain all the pilots on the staff and find them some other job within the organisation, allowing them so many flying hours, rather than dispense with men for whom we may be looking very shortly?

Mr. Lindgren: The Question refers not to operational staff but to administrative staff.

Mr. M. Lindsay: Does the redundancy apply only to Tory brats?

Air-Commodore Harvey: Whilst appreciating the necessity to reduce staff, may I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to bear in mind that some of these gentlemen concerned have a life-long experience in operating aircraft, and will he impress upon the Corporation not to lose the wealth of talent which they may lose if they get rid of these men?

Mr. Lindgren: I am certain that all the points to which the hon. and gallant Member has referred are borne in mind by those responsible for administration.

Mr. Beswick: With reference to the quotation from the speech by the Scottish Socialist M.P., would my hon. Friend agree that any person in a nationalised Corporation who is not helpful, irrespective of political affiliations, should be declared redundant?

Major Lloyd: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of the fact that the word "helpful" was used in an entirely different connection?

Accidents Investigation Committee (Report)

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation when it is intended to publish the Report of the Air Accidents Investigation Committee recently set up to inquire into the procedure to be followed when accidents occur to civil aircraft.

Mr. Lindgren: It is not intended to publish this Report.

Mr. Cooper: In view of the fact that, in British South American Airways Corporation aircraft, over 70 people were killed in a period of five months, does not my hon. Friend consider it a matter of vital public concern that the reports on these accidents should be published?

Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir. The responsibility for the decision must always rest with the Minister, and he has to take the best advice possible before coming to his decision. The Minister should take that responsibility and, when his decision is made, it is announced to the House and is a subject for discussion.

Mr. Keeling: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the refusal of the Inspector of Air Accidents, under instructions from the Department, to allow the cross-examination of Government witnesses cause great uneasiness, and can he say anything about that?

Mr. Lindgren: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The Inspector of Accidents is under no instructions from anyone.

Mr. Keeling: Still, he refuses.

Mr. Beswick: Could my hon. Friend say whether this Committee made any recommendations and whether we are to know what they were?

Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir. These recommendations are for the information of my noble Friend. They are made in a private capacity, and the Minister respects advice given to him in confidence, and takes full responsibility for the decisions which he makes arising from it.

Sir Ralph Glyn: If there is a statutory obligation in regard to accidents occurring on the railways and at sea, why should not the same thing apply to the air?

Mr. Lindgren: There is a statutory obligation in regard to the air, but the difference is that the railways are longer established, with over 100 years of operation, and air transport is new. Therefore, there is a little more limelight in the newspapers on unfortunate incidents which happen from time to time.

Mr. James Hudson: In view of the tact that reports on air accidents have already been published, and I am referring to the one in Northampton, particularly, and that nothing has been done about the statement that drink was one of the causes of the accident, is that not a further reason why my hon. Friend should reconsider this matter?

Mexico City—London (Fares)

Mr. Follick: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation if he will make a further statement with regard to the different rates charged for air passage between Mexico City and London by various companies.

Mr. Lindgren: British South American Airways Corporation does not operate through to Mexico City. Owing to the low rates charged for the long internal haul in the U.S.A., the return fares of


airlines operating between Mexico City and London via New York are £40 cheaper than the Corporation's return fare between Mexico City and London via Havana, the sector Mexico City—Havana being operated by Pan American Airways and other local operators.

Mr. Follick: In view of my statement on Thursday last that there was a great difference in the fares charged from Mexico City to London, which I myself paid—and I paid £35 extra—would the Parliamentary Secretary now withdraw the charge he made that I was making a false declaration?

Mr. Lindgren: Inasmuch as I must admit that I was a little harsh on my hon. Friend, I do withdraw; but his statements really were a little inaccurate, in that B.S.A.A. do not operate from Mexico City. However, I was wrong, and I withdraw it.

Mr. Follick: Thank you.

Accident, London Airport

Mr. A. Edward Davies: (by Private Notice) asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation whether he has any statement to make on the air liner disaster at London Airport last night.

Mr. Lindgren: My noble Friend and I are profoundly shocked at the disaster which happened to this aircraft last night. The House will desire me to express its deep sympathy with the relatives of those who lost their lives. Members of the staff of the Chief Inspector of Accidents were on the scene soon after the occurrence, and a preliminary investigation has already begun. The fullest inquiry will be made into the causes and circumstances of the accident.

Mr. Davies: Can the Minister say why this plane came into London Airport when so many other planes were diverted; or is it a matter for inquiry later?

Mr. Lindgren: In a case such as this the decision where a pilot will land rests with the pilot. It is the responsibility of those in control of the aerodrome to inform the pilot of the conditions at the aerodrome.

Mr. Bowles: Is it true that the pilot of the Sabena aircraft radioed to London Airport as he was crossing the coast, or soon after he had done so, that they

would have to make a crash landing; or is the report on the B.B.C. this morning true, that only when they got to the airport was it found necessary to use Radar and other landing devices? Which was true?

Mr. Lindgren: I do not wish to prejudice any statements which are made at the inquiry, and I am certain my hon. Friend will appreciate that anything I say does not in any way prejudice the facts which will be established. My information is that the information was available to the airport that an accident was likely to happen, and all arrangements had been made. The manager of Sabena was, in fact, in the control tower at the time the aircraft arrived.

Mr. Assheton: Is it not most unfortunate that we should be discussing a matter which is sub judice?

Mr. Teeling: In foggy weather is the fog dispersal equipment F.I.D.O. still in use at aerodromes near London?

Mr. Lindgren: Not at London Airport; but it is at Blackbushe and Manston.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S EMERGENCY FUND

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now announce what contribution His Majesty's Government are prepared to make to the International Children's Emergency Fund.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now state to what extent or in what manner the decision to contribute to the International Children's Emergency Fund is to be implemented.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): His Majesty's Government have decided to make a contribution of £100,000 but the exact fashion in which this will be allocated is not yet determined.

Mr. Fletcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this announcement will give general satisfaction?

Mr. Sorensen: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether this is a final contribution, and whether no further money is expected?

Mr. Bevin: The Lord Mayor of London made a great appeal to the British people, who are making a great response, as are also people in the Commonwealth, and this is a token contribution which I was asked to obtain as showing the interest of His Majesty's Government in the matter.

Mr. Lipson: May I ask my right hon. Friend if his statement means that the Government's contribution will be made exclusively to the Lord Mayor's Appeal Fund?

Mr. Bevin: No; I am discussing that. I do not know yet whether the funds raised in Great Britain in total through the Lord Mayor will rank in accordance with American law or not. Therefore I have to reserve the allocation until I know.

Mr. Warbey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this amount is only about one-tenth of the sum that some of us had hoped His Majesty's Government would be able to contribute, and that it represents only one-eighth of the amount which has been contributed, for example, by the Government of Australia? Will he not see whether a little more generous contribution could not be made by this country?

Mr. Bevin: I have to remind the House that I have to consider the total contribution made by this country since the war ended, and, if my hon. Friend will add up the total amount paid by the British taxpayers, he will find that we stand proportionately equal compared with anybody.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Will the Minister say how this Fund will be administered, how the beneficiaries will be selected, and how will any possible dispute about these matters be determined?

Mr. Bevin: I must ask for notice of that question.

Mr. Sorensen: May I, for further clarification, ask my right hon. Friend whether this sum will be paid to the Lord Mayor's Fund, and whether it precludes a certain percentage increase on other contributions? Will he say if this amount goes direct to the Lord Mayor's Appeal Fund?

Mr. Bevin: I have already answered that. I must wait and see what test is to be applied by other countries, and that is why I say that the allocation is withheld.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH EMBASSY STAFF, ANKARA (MR. W. E. D. ALLEN)

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what are the pay and allowances attaching to the post of Head of the Information Department of the British Embassy at Ankara, at present occupied by Mr. W. E. D. Allen.

Mr. Bevin: Mr. W. E. D. Allen receives a salary of£1,320 per annum and a Foreign Service allowance of£1,950 per annum.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is my hon. Friend aware that the gentleman to whom the Question relates was a distinguished, active and leading propagandist for Mosley and Fascism——

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Like the Minister of Food.

Mr. Platts-Mills: —and that, in his own private name and in an assumed name——

Mr. Speaker: I am not clear whether the hon. Gentleman is attacking a civil servant by saying that he was a leading propagandist for Mosley. If so, it is quite wrong for him to say that.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Platts-Mills: I hope you will accept my assurance, Mr. Speaker, that my attack is not on the unfortunate Mr. Allen. I wish to conclude my question. Does not the Foreign Secretary know that to appoint a man with such a record to such a delicate position exposes both the man and my right hon. Friend——

Mr. Speaker: The attack must be made on the Foreign Secretary, and not on anybody whom he may have appointed to any special position.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is it not perfectly clear that the appointment of this man exposes both my right hon. Friend and the man himself to very embarrassing criticisms?

Mr. Bevin: I understand that this gentleman who has been appointed, for which I accept responsibility, owes no allegiance to any other country.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Gallacher: That shows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Mr. Keeling: Reverting to the original Question and answer, would it not be a good thing if the hon. Member looked up these figures in the Estimates in the Library, instead of boring us with them?

Mr. William Teeling: Is the Foreign Secretary also aware that Mr. Allen wrote what is probably the best book about Georgia, and is one of the best authorities on that area?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think I should be called upon to answer for either the virtues or faults of my staff, and I do not want to be led into that on either side.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think it is worth pursuing the matter any further, as the Foreign Secretary has made it quite clear.

At the end of Questions—

Major Legge-Bourke: In view of the fact that the gentleman mentioned in Question No. 7 has an extremely distinguished war record behind him, would it be possible, Mr. Speaker, for you to rule that the first supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Platts-Mills) should be erased from the OFFICIAL REPORT?

Mr. Speaker: I certainly cannot rule anything of the sort. I have no business or authority to do so. After all, what any hon. Member says is his responsibility, and therefore it should go down in the OFFICIAL REPORT so that we can judge of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (GOVERNMENT)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make on the present position in Korea.

Mr. Bevin: At the Moscow Conference in December, 1945, it was decided to set up a Joint Soviet-American Commission, composed of representatives of the Soviet and United States Commands in Korea, who were to consult with the Korean democratic parties, with a view to the establishment of a provisional Government. Unfortunately, the activities of the Joint Commission were frustrated by the insistence of the Soviet members that

only Korean parties of the extreme Left could be regarded as democratic.
After exhausting every effort to make progress within the framework of the Moscow decision, the United States Government decided to place the Korean question before the United Nations; and, on 14th November last, the General Assembly passed resolutions providing for the setting up of a Temporary Commission to proceed to Korea to organise elections throughout the country, and for the subsequent creation of a National Assembly and National Government. The Soviet Government announced that they would not co-operate in the implementation of these resolutions; and, when the Temporary Commission arrived in Korea, the Soviet authorities carried their defiance of the United Nations to the point of refusing the Commission all facilities in their Zone of occupation. On 26th February, the Interim Committee of the United Nations, to whom the Temporary Commission had reported this situation, approved a proposal that the Commission should proceed to arrange elections in that part of Korea to which it has access. The Southern Zone alone includes, in fact, two-thirds of the population of Korea.
In the meantime, there had been reports from the Soviet zone to the effect that the North Korean People's Congress had drafted the Constitution of a "Democratic People's Republic" which would claim sovereignty over all Korea, and that the Constitution would be finally drafted about the middle of March. Such details of this Constitution, as have been broadcast, indicate that it will be virtually a carbon copy of Constitutions imposed in other Soviet-satellite countries. This development, in the view of His Majesty's Government, emphasises the importance of the early establishment, by properly supervised democratic elections, of a Korean administration in the South.

Mr. Teeling: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his very detailed reply, may I ask him if he does feel that, in the circumstances, it now becomes even more important to press, as far as possible, for a quick peace treaty with Japan so as to isolate that particular area, where the position is becoming more and more critical?

Mr. Bevin: That is another question

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

Dr. Chatterton-Hill (Widow)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements are now being made for the widow of Dr. Chatterton-Hill, a British subject, who died of starvation in the British sector of Berlin on 12th January, 1947.

Mr. Bevin: Mrs. Chatterton-Hill was brought to this country by air on the 19th February, 1947. She has since been accommodated at a hostel in Renfrewshire administered by the Department of Health for Scotland. I am now considering the question of an ex gratia payment to her.

Mr. Stokes: As I first brought this case to the attention of my right hon. Friend a year ago, and as no satisfactory solution has yet been found, can he say whether, as this lady's husband, who was a British subject, was left to die through the incompetence of British officials in Berlin, he really thinks it satisfactory to let the thing drift on in this way, and not make the widow a generous provision?

Mr. Bevin: I acknowledge that the treatment was not what it ought to have been. On the other hand, the House must understand that this man did work for the Germans.

Mr. Stokes: That is all very well. It is most unfair, because has not my right hon. Friend already decided that this man was not guilty of treason, and was, therefore, exonerated? He cannot have it both ways. If the man was exonerated, the widow should be properly looked after. She is not being looked after; she is being neglected. May I have an answer? If I cannot get an answer I wish to inform my right hon. Friend that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment, and circulate the report in full to hon. Members of this House.

Yugoslavs

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who is now responsible for the Yugoslavs detained in Munster Lager; and why it was necessary to change the commandant of this camp.

Mr. Bevin: Owing to the reductions in the British Army of the Rhine, responsibility for guarding the Yugoslavs in Munster Lager has been assumed by the Control Commission. The commandant

of Munster Lager camp is unchanged, but an officer of the Penal Branch of the Control Commission is now responsible for the Yugoslav compound.

Mr. Stokes: My right hon. Friend does not tell me why. These people, who have been very badly treated, in my opinion, were perfectly satisfied with the arrangement they had, although it was penal. Can he say why it was necessary to change the commandant?

Mr. Bevin: Because the Control Commission decided it was necessary.

Mr. Stokes: Why did the Control Com-mission decide that?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think I am called upon to tell the hon. Gentleman—who seems to take up these questions of Germany—everything which has to be decided within the Department on the transfer of commandants.

Mr. Stokes: This has nothing to do with Germany; this is a question of whether we shall, or shall not, send certain people in our power to certain death in Yugoslavia. Why has it been necessary to change the commandant?

Mr. Bevin: That is not in the Question at all; it is not raised there. If I have to manage these affairs, and the commandant has to be removed, I do not think I am called upon to give every reason for such a change.

Major Lloyd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these camps are visited periodically by a Yugoslav mission owing allegiance to Tito, and that the opportunity is taken on every such visit to distribute anti-British propaganda amongst the Yugoslavs who will not go back to Yugoslavia? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of that, and that it has nothing to do with the commandant leaving?

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite is quite wrong?

Major Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the purpose, status, and terms of reference of the Special Refugee Commission set up by the Foreign Office to examine the Yugoslav refugee problem in Germany and Austria; whether I.R.O. is satisfied with its relationship with this Commission,


and how the terms of reference of the Commission have been altered by the Yugoslav Government's repudiation of the Bled Agreement.

Mr. Bevin: The Special Refugee Commission was set up in order to provide His Majesty's Government with information regarding refugees in areas under their control, to assist the British zonal authorities in the screening of such refugees, and to take part in the interrogation of suspected quislings. I have no reason to believe that the International Refugee Organisation are other than satisfied with their relationship with the Commission.
The only effect of the repudiation of the Bled Agreement on the Commission was to relieve it of its liaison duties with the Special Yugoslav Mission which was withdrawn in consequence of the denunciation. The Commission's other activities are virtually complete, and it is now being wound up. Its work has been of the greatest value both to His Majesty's Government and to the refugees themselves, thousands of whom have been enabled to make a fresh start in life after being cleared, on the advice of the Commission, of unfounded charges of collaboration.

Major Beamish: May I ask whether, as a result of the activities of this Commission, any Yugoslav nationals are in fact being forcibly repatriated?

Mr. Bevin: We have not forcibly repatriated anyone.

Major Beamish: Will any of them be forcibly repatriated?

Workshops, Ruhr (Armaments)

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if there are now any workshops in the Ruhr making armaments, or capable of making them.

Mr. Bevin: There are no workshops in the Ruhr making armaments of any kind. With regard to the second part of the Question, it is technically possible, of course, to manufacture certain types of armaments in ordinary engineering workshops, but it is one of the first purposes of the Occupation to prevent the manufacture of armaments by the Germans.

All jigs and special tools for the manufacture of armaments have, therefore, been destroyed, and the destruction of machines specially designed for the manufacture of armaments is virtually complete also.

Mr. Reid: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his answer flatly contradicts the propaganda of Mr. Wallace in. America, whose propaganda resembles the tales of Baron Munchausen?

Mr. Bevin: I must impress upon hon. Members that I am not responsible for what people may say in any part of the world. Really, I have not time to read all they do say.

Unmarried Mothers (Nationality Law)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further action has been taken in the British zone of Germany and of Austria to deal with the problem of unmarried women nationals of those countries who have had children by British fathers; what attempt has been made to secure records of the application or needs of these women; and what proposals by German and Austrian authorities respectively have been considered in relationship to this matter.

Mr. Bevin: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to his Question of 2nd February, 1948. The legal position is being considered. The normal procedure for the registration of births in both Germany and Austria enables the mother of a child to record whom she claims the father to be. The Austrian authorities have been informed that we are hoping that the problem of unmarred mothers who have children by foreign fathers will be dealt with by the United Nations Economic and Social Organisation, since this is a matter of interest to a number of countries. In the absence of a central German authority, no representations have been received in respect of German women.

Mr. Sorensen: While that reply gives a certain amount of encouragement, can we take the initiative and indicate to the United Nations that we are prepared to act along lines which are highly desirable?

Mr. Bevin: The whole question pf nationality laws and of the transference of children is very complicated, and I


cannot give an answer to a generalised question such as my hon. Friend has asked.

Captured German Documents

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what documents relating to Sir Oswald Mosley's relations with the Nazis were captured by the Allied Forces; and if he will publish them;
(2) if he will publish all those documents captured by the Allied Forces which relate to the relations between the organisation then calling itself the British Union of Fascists and the German Nazis.

Mr. Bevin: So far, no documents relating to Sir Oswald Mosley's relations with the Nazis have been found among the captured German Foreign Ministry documents, which are those that concern my Department. The second part of the Question does not therefore arise.

Mr. Platts-Mills: In view of the terms of my right hon. Friend's answer, which seemed to indicate that further research is still being made, and in view of the likelihood of this gentleman quite soon exercising to the full the political liberties that he has, could my right hon. Friend pursue the inquiries further?

Mr. Bevin: As I announced to the House the other week, we are going through all the documents in an ordered manner.

Mr. McGovern: If, in pursuing these inquiries, the Minister finds such documents, would he consider publishing them along with all documents in relation to the Hitler-Soviet pact?

Mr. Bevin: I said in the House the other week that I did not want to depart from the arrangements that had been made, and that was to take every set of documents in order, one at a time—to be done by thorough investigation—and then publish all of them. I think that is the proper thing to do.

Oral Answers to Questions — REFUGEES (RECRUITMENT)

Sir Ralph Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what facilities are being afforded to the International

Refugee Organisation, through its authorised agents, the Jewish Agency and the American Joint Distribution Committee, to visit camps in the British zone of Germany, in Cyprus and in Italy, there to select 30,000 ablebodied recruits and arrange for their transportation to Palestine; and whether any restriction has been placed on this recruitment pending the surrender by the United Kingdom of the Mandate for Palestine.

Mr. Bevin: No such facilities have been requested, as far as the British zone of Germany and Cyprus are concerned, nor am I aware that any such request has been addressed to the Italian Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN RECOVERY (U.S.A. PROPOSALS)

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any political conditions have been attached to the proposals for the European Recovery Programme made by the American Secretary of State to His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Bevin: No proposals have been made to His Majesty's Government by the United States Secretary of State. An Economic Co-operation Bill, based on proposals made to Congress by Mr. Marshall, was reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate last week. It contained no political conditions.

Mr. Blackburn: Has my right hon. Friend anything to say about the allegation by Mr. Wallace that our steel nationalisation programme has been definitely postponed under American pressure, which allegation will be received with acclaim by Communists and crypto-Communists in this country?

Mr. Bevin: I really cannot answer questions for Mr. Wallace, or for any statesman of another country. I gave the fact that there are no political conditions in the Bill.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Can the House be informed whether the Question or the answer, or both, were framed by Mr. Marshall?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir, it was not framed by Mr. Marshall, or by Mr. Molotov.

Oral Answers to Questions — FALKLAND ISLANDS (BRITISH ACTION)

Mr. Donner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the arrival of an Argentine naval detachment on Deception Island; whether any foreign naval or other detachments or personnel have landed elsewhere in the Falkland Island Dependencies; and whether steps will be taken to remove all foreign flags, portraits and other symbols of title and sovereignty left or established there during the recent period of foreign trespass.

Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir. I understand that Argentine and Chilean naval parties have been landed at certain other points in the Falkland Islands Dependencies. His Majesty's ships, and the magistrates in charge of British occupied posts, have standing instructions to take all the necessary measures to safeguard the British legal title to sovereignty in the Dependencies.

Mr. Donner: Am I to understand that no foreign detachments remain on British territories?

Mr. Bevin: I would like to have notice of that; I am not quite certain.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the claim is being made that these islands come under the cover of the Monroe doctrine, and does he accept the proposition that that doctrine covers these islands?

Mr. Bevin: I have seen no such claim made. It was certainly not made by the United States, and I am not aware that it has ever been made since the Monroe doctrine was declared.

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what date the Government first received information that foreign nationals had landed without authority on islands in the Falkland Islands Dependencies; and what periods elapsed between the receipt of this information and the sending of any formal protest to the Governments of the foreign nationals concerned and between the receipt of this information and the sailing of a British cruiser from Capetown.

Mr. Bevin: Illegal landings by foreign nationals in the Falkland Islands Dependencies were first reported to His Majesty's Government in January, 1947, and formal written protests were made in each case by the British resident magistrates to the commanders of the foreign parties concerned. Further written protests were made to the officers in charge by the Governor of the Falkland Islands during his annual tour of the Dependendies in March, 1947, when he found occupied posts on Gamma Island and Greenwich Island. The Chilean Government replied on 16th May in a formal Note to His Majesty's Embassy in Santiago' rejecting the Governor's protest.
The Argentine and Chilean encroachments during the 1946 to 1947 Antarctic summer were made the subject of comprehensive notes of protest to the two Governments in December, 1947, and a further protest was made about the same time to the Argentine Government. These protests were rejected by both Governments at the end of January, 1948. H.M.S. "Nigeria" sailed for Port Stanley from Capetown on 16th February.

Major Beamish: What was the cause of the very long delay between the receipt of the information that these landings were taking place and the taking of any sort of proper action by His Majesty's Government?

Mr. Bevin: In international affairs it is as well to try to settle before taking precipitate action. When it was found that a protest had no effect at all, we took action, which, I think, was quite collect.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Can the Minister say whether any of these Argentina landing parties did any damage to British property or removed any British flags?

Mr. Bevin: No, not that I am aware.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: If these trespasses are persisted in without any attempt to make an agreement with His Majesty's Government, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the forcible removal of these posts?

Mr. Bevin: I do not like to threaten anybody while negotiations are going on. I think we had better exercise a little common sense.

Oral Answers to Questions — EXPATRIATION OF POPULATIONS, EUROPE

Mr. Stokes: asked the. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the wide provisions made in the Potsdam Agreement for the wholesale forcible expatriation of populations from North and Middle Europe, including Eastern Poland, East Prussia, Silesia and Czechoslovakia, he will state which of these provisions were decided upon at Yalta.

Mr. Bevin: No provisions for the forcible expatriation of populations were decided upon at Yalta.

Mr. Stokes: Am I to understand from my right hon. Friend's answer that there were no discussions on this problem? Was that a sudden brain wave which occurred at Potsdam?

Mr. Bevin: That was not the Question. My hon. Friend asked whether any decision was made. I do not know all the discussions that went on. I looked up what was decided, and no such decision was taken.

Mr. Stokes: If I put down another Question, will my right hon. Friend discover whether the matter was discussed at Yalta? May I have an answer to my Question, because, if I am not going to get an answer——

Mr. Bevin: I am not going to answer, any threats at all. If my hon. Friend puts down a Question, I will, of course, endeavour to answer it, as I always do. I do not always give my hon. Friend the answers he wants, but that is not my fault.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH HONDURAS

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the circumstances necessitating the despatch of a cruiser to British Honduras.

Mr. Bevin: Rumours recently reached London that there was a possibility that certain elements in Guatemala might try to stage an incident in British Honduras. There have also been inflammatory articles in the Guatemalan Press, and His Majesty's Minister in Guatemala City reported that a resolution was put forward in the Guatemalan Congress on 23rd

February advocating the immediate invasion of British Honduras. I am glad to be able to record that the President of the Guatemalan Congress refused to accept this resolution, but His Majesty's Government considered it wise to send His Majesty's ship "Sheffield" and His Majesty's ship "Devonshire" to Belize to ensure the protection of life and property.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that one of the first results of this impotent imperialist gesture has been a demonstration to boycott British trade, and that at a demonstration yesterday it was decided to boycott Scotch whisky?

Mr. Bevin: I cannot be influenced by the boycott on British trade. There is, a British governor and a British administration, and the citizens of British Honduras have shown by their action that they are thoroughly British and are desirous of retaining British connections. I have offered to discuss this business with a view to settlement, but if there is any threat to endanger life, it is the duty of His Majesty's Government, quite apart from the merits of the case, to take the necessary protective steps.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement will give satisfaction to my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House? May I ask whether he is satisfied that there is sufficient strength on the spot to preserve the integrity of British Honduras and to look after British interests in the way in which they ought to be looked after?

Mr. Bevin: I have been advised by the Defence Ministry that that is so.

Mr. Paget: Will my right hon. Friend be open to any suggestion as to where the boycotted whisky should be diverted?

Mr. Bevin: I have already suggested that it should come to London.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks: With regard to the report that the Guatemalan Government have refused police protection for our Legation in their country, will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to ensure that our interests are adequately protected in Guatemala?

Mr. Bevin: I have already done so.

Oral Answers to Questions — CZECHOSLOVAKIA (THREE-POWER DECLARATION)

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make on the Three-Power Declaration dated 26th February, 1948, with relation to the recent coup in Czechoslovakia; and whether any further action is contemplated by His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir. I think the Declaration can stand by itself. As to the second part of the Question, I would not wish at the present moment to add anything to what the Declaration says.

Mr. Blackburn: While not wishing to press my right hon. Friend, may I ask whether this Declaration, which is widely supported by the British people, will be followed by a policy of concerted action with America and the freedom-loving Powers to stop the advance of the Police State, whether by force or by treachery, across Europe and the world before it is too late?

Mr. Platts-Mills: When my right hon. Friend, in conjunction with his colleagues from France and America made his protest about what he erroneously called a coup, was he confusing the Czechoslovak Republic with a "banana republic" in South America?

Mr. Bevin: I did not know there was a "banana republic" in South America. There may be in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: With reference to the right hon. Gentleman's reply to the second part of the Question, has not the time come when we should give some assurance to other countries such as Austria, which are spiritually in Western Europe but geographically in Eastern or Central Europe?

Mr. Bevin: That does not arise out of the Question.

Mr. Bartlett: It arises out of the second part of the Question.

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is proposing to take any steps about the protest of Czechoslovakia against the recent Three-Power Declaration.

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIAM (RICE SURPLUS)

Mr. McAdam: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that, by agreement of 1st January, 1946, Siam agreed to provide 1½ million tons of free rice for the Allies, as a war indemnity; and how, so far, that agreement has been implemented.

Mr. Bevin: It is not correct to describe the free rice as a war indemnity. The exact position is that by the agreement of 1st January, 1946, Siam undertook to provide free the accumulated surplus of rice in the country, above her internal needs, up to a maximum of 1½ million tons. This agreement was, however, modified in May, 1946, when His Majesty's Government agreed to pay for rice exported after 25th March, 1946. Rice supplied free amounted to 143,716 tons.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Trunk Route Airport

Air-Commodore Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what plans he has made for developing a trunk route airport in Cyprus.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Rees-Williams): The provision of a trunk route airport in Cyprus is not at present contemplated.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the hon. Gentleman go into the matter further? Does he realise that at the moment British operators are having to spend currency, where if we had a trunk airport in Cyprus we could earn dollars, or other currencies; and would he either go there, or ask his right hon. Friend to go there, to see the island and to investigate?

Mr. Rees-Williams: So far as the island is concerned, the Government is not in the position to spend the large sum of money which would he required. If is a question of international airports, the question should be put down to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Employment (Collective Agreements)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what provision now exist in Cyprus for the entering into and implementing of collective


agreements between workers and employers.

Mr. Rees-Williams: There is no special law in Cyprus governing collective agreements between workers and employers, nor is there any law preventing or limiting them. Such agreements are in practice freely entered into and honoured, and are governed by the ordinary law of contracts.

Mr. Hughes: Is my hon. Friend aware that the ordinary activities of trade unions are nearly eliminated in Cyprus, so that the making of bargains is very difficult? What is being done to resolve those difficulties, so that the island can live in peace and happiness?

Mr. Rees-Williams: There is a certain amount of legislation with regard to minimum wages, but I have not heard of any particular difficulties arising out of the absence of other legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Proposed Custom Union

Mr. T. Reid: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he proposes to appoint an expert to devise a Customs Union for the West Indies without waiting for a decision on the proposals for federation.

Mr. Rees-Williams: This proposal was put forward by the Conference on the Closer Association of the British Caribbean Colonies held in September last. Should it be endorsed by the Legislatures concerned, my right hon. Friend proposes to act upon it.

Poor Persons' Defence

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what provision exists for the defence of poor persons in the administration of justice in the West Indies Colonies.

Mr. Rees-Williams: I am asking the Governors of the Colonies concerned to furnish the information asked for and I will write to my hon. and learned Friend as soon as I receive their replies.

Mr. Hughes: Would the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, if there is no such machinery in operation at the present

moment, he will take steps to set up such machinery at an early date?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I will wait until I have received their reply.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICAN COLONIES

Cassava

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that there is a shortage of cassava for making starch, and whether he is taking any steps to stimulate its production in East or West Africa.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Yes, Sir. In both East and West Africa the production of cassava has always been encouraged as a reserve against famine. Normally only surplus stocks are available for export. Five thousand tons are now being shipped from East Africa and it is hoped to export further quantities later this year. Exports from West Africa were discontinued during the war in favour of other crops, but the possibility of reviving the trade is now under consideration.

African Labourers, Kenya (Protection)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a case at Thomsons Falls, Kenya, in which two Indians were found guilty of beating an African employee to death; why such treatment of this and other African labourers in the employment of these Indians which had persisted for some time was not detected by local authorities; and whether arrangements will be made for labour camps of road contractors to be subjected to regular inspection.

Mr. Rees-Williams: I am communicating with the Governor on the subject, and will write to the hon. Member as soon as I receive his reply.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA (GOVERNMENT)

Mr. T. Reid: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement regarding the demands made in the Northern Rhodesian Legislature for responsible government.

Mr. Rees-Williams: As this reply is rather long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Certain changes in the Northern Rhodesia Constitution are due to come into force this year. They are based on proposals put forward by two leaders of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, during their visit to London in 1946, and were agreed after discussion with them and the then Governor, Sir John Waddington.

The unofficial members have now indicated that they have new constitutional proposals to put forward, but they have not yet stated the precise nature of these proposals.

My right hon. Friend has arranged for the unofficial members to be informed that, while he will, of course, be prepared to consider any proposals which they may make, it seems to him an essential preliminary step that the new Governor, who arrived in Northern Rhodesia on 19th February, should have an opportunity of considering those proposals and discussing them with the unofficial members.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE

Holy Places (Protection)

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the High Commissioner and Government of Palestine have agreed to assist in the formation of an International Police Force to undertake the guardianship of Jerusalem and the reserved area of the Holy Places when sanctioned by the United Nations Organisation.

Mr. Rees-Williams: The United Nations Commission has been informed that no obstacle will be placed in the way of any members of the British section of the Palestine Police Force volunteering, on termination of their present engagements, for service with such a force.

Sir R. Glyn: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say whether there has been any proposal by the United Nations for the formation of this force?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I should want notice of that question.

Officer's Trial (Documents)

Brigadier Head: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received any reply from the Palestine Government in answer to his representations regarding the destruction or surrender of a copy of a document exhibited at the trial of Captain R. A. Farran.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Yes, Sir. The Palestine Government have agreed to destroy the copy of the document in their possession.

Brigadier Head: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Palestine Government have stated that they will not destroy this document until 1st April, and does he consider this delay is an attempt to continue their policy of bureaucratic inertia?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I was not aware of that decision. I understand that if the document has not already been destroyed, it very shortly will be destroyed, but I am bound to point out that Captain Farran's solicitors wrote a letter of a kind I have never seen written before by solicitors, and if they want prompt attention to requests they should convey their desire in a courteous and proper form.

Brigadier Head: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he is aware that I, also, have seen that letter and the previous letters, and the behaviour of the Palestine Government in this respect in my opinion not only deserves that letter, but a letter of that kind is the only type calculated to get a move on?

Mr. Rees-Williams: As the hon. and gallant Member is aware, I was a practising solicitor for many years and I have never seen such a document, and as a solicitor I was ashamed to read a letter of that kind from a firm.

Mr. Speaker: This looks like becoming, a legal argument.

Police (Absentees)

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many members of the Palestine Police were, at the latest convenient date, deserters or absent without leave; and how many vehicles belonging to the Palestine Police were at the same date missing as a result of theft.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Numbers missing who have been posted as deserted or absent without leave are as follow:

British, five during 1947 and six since 1st January, 1948.

Arabs, two members of the Regular Police and 477 temporary and supernumerary policemen, during the three months ending 29th February, 1948.

Jews, nil.

As regards the last part of the Question, vehicles missing are: one armoured light reconnaissance car, two armoured cars and one 3-ton truck, all missing since 1st January, 1948.

Mr. Mikardo: Will my hon. Friend say what action he or the Palestine Government are taking to deal with this matter and, secondly, whether he knows how the British deserters are earning their livelihood, and whether any of them are now in the employ of the Arab agencies?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I can add nothing further about deserters, or those posted as absent without leave, without notice.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Do not these numbers show that the number of deserters in the Palestine Police Force is remarkably small?

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Could my hon. Friend say whether any deserters are members of the so-called British League, Palestine branch, which circulated many Members of Parliament this morning with a highly seditious and offensive document?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I can give no further information about those posted as deserters, or as absent without leave, other than I have already given.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Can the hon. Gentleman say by whom these vehicles were stolen?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I am not in possession of that information.

Detainees, Kenya (Transfer)

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the forthcoming termination of the mandate for Palestine, what are his intentions in respect of the 290 persons deported from Palestine in October, 1944, and at present in a detention camp at Gilgil, Kenya.

Major Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Jews and Arabs, shown separately, have been deported from Palestine for terrorist activities and are still held outside Palestine; in what countries under his administration these people are held; and what decision has been taken regarding the future of these people after His Majesty's Government cease to be responsible for law and order in Palestine.

Mr. Rees-Williams: The only detainees from Palestine now held outside that country are the 291 Jews in Gilgil camp, Kenya. It is the intention to transfer these detainees from Kenya to Palestine. Arrangements to this end are now under consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALAYA (RUBBER SALES)

Mr. McAdam: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why Malayan rubber is being sold to the U.S.A. at cost price, and at 2d. per pound cheaper than it should be.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Rubber producers are free to sell their rubber in the U.S.A. or elsewhere at whatever price it will fetch. His Majesty's Government does not control the price in any way.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

Commonwealth Occupation Force, Japan

Mr. W. Teeling: asked the Minister of Defence whether the United Kingdom contingents of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan which is about to be withdrawn was part of the minimum Force required for defence as well as military administration or whether S.C.A.P. considered it as surplus, and what nation will replace our Forces with their own.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): The British Commonwealth Occupation Force was constituted as a contribution of the countries of the British Commonwealth to the occupation forces of Japan, and was charged with the military duties of control of the area allotted to it by Supreme Commander, Allied Forces in the Pacific. These duties were primarily the demilitarisation of Japanese installations and the maintenance of law and


order. Demilitarisation tasks have been virtually completed without opposition, and the success of the military administration of Japan has been such as to enable the United States Government and Supreme Commander, Allied Forces in the Pacific, who are responsible for military government, to agree to a considerable reduction in the strength of the United Kingdom contingent of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force without replacement.

Mr. Teeling: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider, as this decision was made as far back as the autumn of last year, and in view of the very serious statement made today by the Foreign Secretary on the position in Korea, that it may not be necessary to maintain these Forces?

Mr. Alexander: No, I think that with regard to the general position of the Occupation Forces in Japan our decision is quite justified.

Scientific Defence (Commonwealth Conference)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement about the progress of the British Commonwealth Conference on Scientific Defence.

Mr. Alexander: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the information on this subject given in paragraph 50 of the Statement Relating to Defence, 1948 (Cmd. 7327), and to my statement in the House on 1st March.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that as long ago as Christmas a report on this conference appeared in the Press in Pakistan? Would he bear in mind that when a conference or a document is supposed to be secret, not only should the proceedings at the conference and the contents of the document be secret, but also their very existence? Will he look into the leakage that, in fact, occurred?

Mr. Alexander: I have not heard of this particular incident the hon. and gallant Gentleman has brought to my notice. Pakistan was not a party to this particular conference. I shall certainly make inquiries on the question he has raised.

Officers' Kit (Purchase Tax)

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Minister of Defence what additional Purchase Tax since last October has now to be met by a newly-commissioned officer out of his £50 kit allowance.

Mr. Alexander: In the region of £10, but, of course, the purchases made by an individual officer will vary according to his personal needs.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is the right hon. Gentleman considering raising the uniform allowance, in view of the great need to ensure voluntary recruitment, and the need of officers to obtain some benefit from the allowance?

Mr. Alexander: I am sure that the representations which, I believe, are being made, when they are received through the Service channels, will be properly considered.

Chiefs of Staff (Public Speeches)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence if he will issue instructions to the Chiefs of Staff to refrain from making public speeches at times of international tension.

Mr. Alexander: I am not sure what particular case my hon. Friend has in mind, but at present I do not see any need to issue instructions of the kind he suggests.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that on 20th January Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder made a speech at Glasgow in which he referred to friendly nations as "yapping jackals"? Does he not think it wise to ask these gentlemen to exercise the same wise discretion as is expected of permanent civil servants, and to abstain from making political speeches?

Mr. Alexander: I think my hon. Friend must be referring to a speech which was made on 20th February and not the 20th January, which Lord Tedder was making at a Territorial exhibition in support of recruitment for the Territorial Forces. I have read the speech very carefully myself, and have found nothing fundamental in it to which I could object. I do not think any country need wear the cap, unless it fits.

Lord John Hope: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the advice contained in the Question ought to be taken by the hon. Member who asked the Question?

Major Lloyd: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the speech of Lord Tedder was received with enthusiastic acclamation in Scotland?

British Security Forces, Palestine

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Minister of Defence, in view of the increasing lawlessness and outrage in Palestine what changes of policy in the operation of British security Forces, have been or are about to be imposed.

Mr. Alexander: As I explained in the House on 24th February in answering the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden), the responsible authorities, both civil and military, already have full power to take any steps which appear to them necessary either for the protection of the lives of British Service personnel in Palestine, or for enabling the British Forces to discharge their duties.

Mr. Stewart: Are we to understand then, that despite the increasing gravity of the situation, and the increasing loss of British life, the Government have taken no steps, and are proposing to take no steps in the future, to tighten up our security Forces in Palestine?

Mr. Alexander: That question betrays a complete misconception of the position. We have very considerable Forces in Palestine. We have a responsible High Commissioner, and a very efficient Commander-in-Chief. We have already assured the House that they have our full support, and that whatever representations they make to us will be most carefully considered. I do not think we want to have driving directions given from the back seat.

Earl Winterton: Does the protection to which the right hon. Gentleman referred extend to bringing an action for seditious libel against Mr. Abrahams or Abrams, who has accused the British Army or Police of being responsible for the recent outrage? Will he give further consideration to putting this matter in the hands of the Public Prosecutor?

Mr. Alexander: I will certainly bring that to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whose administrative function it is.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Danish Products (Prices)

Mr. York: asked the Minister of Food who was responsible for the publication of the prices of foods to be purchased from Denmark under the latest agreement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill): A Press notice issued by the Treasury on 27th February specified the prices to be paid for Danish butter and bacon under the recent trade agreement. No information about these prices was issued before that date from any United Kingdom official source.

Mr. York: Why is it that the hon. Lady can give the prices of these commodities and yet refuses to give the prices of other commodities?

Dr. Stummerskill: I have told the hon. Gentleman that there was an announcement by the Treasury. These prices were announced after the Danish Government had made them public.

Bananas

Mrs. Jean Mann: asked the Minister of Food when it is expected that bananas will be available for general allocation on a ration book basis.

Dr. Summerskill: We are very anxious to extend the scope of the distribution of bananas, and we are considering possible methods of doing so.

Anglo-Dutch Agreement

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Food what are the terms of the agreement recently negotiated with Holland; what is the value of the goods to be exchanged; and in particular what will be the value of the agricultural produce to be imported; and what steps he proposes to take to see that this produce is not imported whilst home-grown supplies are available at a reasonable price.

Dr. Summerskill: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a Press notice issued by the Board of Trade, which


answers the first two parts of the Question. With regard to the third part, I estimate that the value of foodstuffs and agricultural produce to be imported from Holland under the agreement in 1948 amounts to approximately £28 million. As regards the last part of the Question, we have been in consultation, during the negotiations, with my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr. Baldwin: Is the hon. Lady aware that if coal and steel formed part of this transaction, as reported, it would be better to exchange coal and steel with either the Argentine or Russia, where there are coarse grains available, so that we could provide more home-produced bacon and eggs?

Mr. Alpass: Does it not largely depend upon the interpretation of "reasonable price"? Is not my hon. Friend aware that there is very considerable dissatisfaction amongst the housewives of this country at the prices they have had to pay in recent times for a lot of homegrown agricultural produce?

Dr. Summerskill: Yes, Sir.

Caretaker, Cambridge (Accommodation)

Mr. David Renton: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that on 11th October, 1947, the Divisional Food Officer, Cambridge, in a letter bearing reference DFO/JLS, informed the hon. Member for Huntingdon that he was taking steps to obtain accommodation on Stow Aerodrome for Mr. S. Humphreys, the Ministry's caretaker there; that this assurance was repeated in a letter dated 23rd December, 1947; that Mr. Humphreys, who was disabled by wounds in World War I and cannot ride a bicycle, is still without accommodation and is having to walk 3½ miles to and from his work each day; and what steps are being taken to make a hut available to him.

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Member will be aware from the correspondence which he has had with the Divisional Food Officer, Cambridge, that my Department,

in an endeavour to assist in this case, have handed over to the local housing authority a suitable building on the airfield for conversion into living accommodation and direct letting to Mr. Humphreys.

Mr. Renton: Is the hon. Lady aware that this matter has drifted on for five months, and that it was five months ago that her Department first promised a hut to this gentleman? Will she explain whether it is the intention of her Department merely to disburden itself of responsibility in this matter by passing the buck to the local authority?

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be aware of the fact that this man is not an employee of my Department. I think that, in the circumstances, we have been very generous in releasing a hut.

Mr. Renton: Is not the hon. Lady aware that it has been stated in the correspondence that he was employed by her Department as a caretaker?

Dr. Summerskill: He is employed as a caretaker by the managers of the depot at the Stow airfield.

Social Functions (Meals)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that his Order limiting the number of people who may attend a function where a full meal is provided does not cover the provision of buffet suppers for unlimited numbers, at which lavish meals are provided; and whether he will take steps to prevent this practice.

Dr. Summerskill: The Order prohibits the service of luncheons, dinners and suppers to parties of more than 100 people. If the hon. Member has in mind any case of evasion I shall be glad to look into it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Water Bill [Lords] exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Whiteley.]

SOCIALISED INDUSTRIES (QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Whiteley.]

3.34

Captain Crookshank: After the interchange which took place in this House at Question Time on 4th December last, it was inevitable that there would have to be a Debate upon the subject contained in the statement which the Lord President made on that day. Obviously, the whole question of the relationship between Parliament and the various organizations—be they boards, commissions, or whatever the name may be—in control of nationalised industries, must be discussed in this House from time to time. It is an entirely new subject. I say that a Debate was inevitable, because on looking at the OFFICIAL REPORT it will be seen that the supplementary questions put to the Lord President on the occasion to which I have referred occupied no less than six columns. Possibly the right hon. Gentleman will have noted also that I then took the opportunity of saying, on behalf of my hon. Friends, that we thought we would probably have to have further discussions.
This is a new field for us to explore, and we want to do so, not on the basis of party, of Government and Opposition, but on the basis how best the House of Commons can deal with the problem. On this issue it makes no difference on which side of the House we sit. We want to try to discover how best we can set up the proper relationship between Parliament and nationalised industries. The immediate problem raised by our previous discussion is the principle upon which Questions are to be asked of and replies given by Ministers. Of course, it goes very much further than that, because the House has not yet decided the main issue, which is how we, as representatives of the owners of the nationalised industries and of the users and consumers, should review the general activities of the organisations running those nationalised industries, and upon what occasions. There are to be reports, and there are to be accounts. Are we to have statements on them? Will the Government put down substantive Motions? Ought there to be a permanent

standing committee, such as the Public Accounts Committee, to look through either the accounts and the business or the general administration of business?
Parliament has not yet settled any of those things, and I make the suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman, for what it is worth, that he should consider whether the time has not come to have either informal talks on the subject between representative Members of the House, or something more formal in the way of a Select Committee to investigate and report to us what would be the best way of dealing with the problem. All those sorts of vistas are opened up by a discussion of this subject, but I do not want to pursue them.
I shall not be long in what I have to say. I am sure the Lord President is sorry that, for reasons which may be known to him, the Leader of the Opposition is unable to be here today; but I think I know something of what my right hon. Friend would like to say. Even so, I say that this is not an Opposition matter as such, but a House of Commons matter. If I speak in a more personal capacity, I am sure hon. Members will realise the position; indeed, some of my hon. Friends may put a slightly different emphasis from mine. In saying that this is not an Opposition matter, I would point out to the Leader of the House that the Question which he answered on the famous 4th December was put down by one of his supporters, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Mr. Sharp); on that occasion it was not even started from this side of the House.
Today, the important thing for the House is to realise that this is an entirely new field. We have no precedents to guide us, and at this first airing of a very difficult subject it would be wise for the Leader of the House—if I might presume to advise him—not to start banging and closing doors. Let them be left open, and let everything be fluid; and, to use a phrase which I have often heard him use, "We must see how we get along" This is definitely one of those cases where Parliament will have to see how it can get along, and in that way we shall gradually, as we have so often done in the past, build up a kind of code of behaviour, procedure, practice, or whatever you like to call it. We shall get the right answer in due course, but we should not be this House of Commons if we thought for one


moment that we could get the right answer right away.
There are two kinds of information hon. Members will wish to have, which are quite different. First, there is factual information. Hon. Members want a great deal of factual information for one purpose or another—that is information which is completely non-controversial or is statistical in nature. The other kind of information sought was posed in a Question by another supporter of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) asked on 4th December how we are to get information which not only the workers in the nationalised industries may require, but which the consumers may require—how will these two bodies of people be able to put questions and complaints? That is what I call the grievance side of the problem, as opposed to the purely factual side.
The different Acts which have passed through this House have given different powers to Ministers with regard to the right to demand information. I think we must accept that whatever a statute says, there is, in a very wide sense, an ultimate responsibility upon Ministers for the nationalised industries. There must be a general responsibility, otherwise it will not be possible for the reports and accounts to come before this House; they will obviously have to come through the channels of the Ministers, and that being so, the Ministers must be held to have some general responsibility. It seems to me that that must be the case, because here are these great State monopolies, and somebody must be in a position, somehow or other, to say something about them. It is not like private industry.
There can be no precedent in regard to the putting down of Questions. I have looked very carefully through Erskine May to discover what is considered to be an admissible Question and what is considered to be an inadmissible Question. On page 338, it is laid down that it is not possible to ask Questions:
Raising matters under the control of bodies or persons not responsible to the Government, such as banks, the money market, the Stock Exchange, joint stock companies, railways, employers' organisations, trade unions, etc.
"Etc." covers a lot, but I do not think it can be held to cover nationalised industries. We have to try to find out what we can ask and how much responsibility the different Ministers will accept.
My first proposition is this: that it is perfectly clear that where statutory duties are laid upon Ministers by the Art setting up a nationalised industry, and where the statutory duties are defined, there can be no doubt at all that Ministers can be questioned about the exercise or non-exercise of these duties. Ministers have been given power to issue directions, and Members must obviously be permitted to ask whether they have given the directions and what are the directions. Alternatively, if Members think that there is a case where direction should have been given and has not been given, then Members must also have the right to question the Minister on why he has not done so. Then there is the other case where the boards, commissions, or whatever they may be called, have the right to put up proposals to the Minister which he may or may not accept, or can modify. If that is a statutory function, there is no doubt that Ministers can be asked: "Were proposals put up? What have you done about the proposals? Have you carried them out or not?" Where statutory duties are laid down for a board to make proposals, there is no doubt that the Minister may be asked a question and will have to reply.
The next thing we must consider is this. Rightly or wrongly, in setting up these State monopolies Parliament has decided against their being on the Civil Service or Post Office basis. The boards have been given the maximum freedom to run their affairs on business lines. We have heard it said: "Oh, yes, there is a certain responsibility in the higher ranges, but the day-to-day business is entirely a matter for the boards." I think we are in some danger of confusing language, because sometimes it is called day-to-day "administration" and sometimes it is called day-to-day "management." Management and administration are not synonymous. What Parliament tried to do, I think, was to remove as far as possible from its purview the day-to-day management, that is the actual details of management; but administration is on a rather higher level. If day-to-day management is bad, it may mean that administration is bad and therefore it may be necessary for Ministers to be questioned.
For example, the 9.15 train yesterday, in which I had the misfortune to come down to London from Lincoln, was one hour and twenty minutes late. I would not dream


of putting down a Question to the right hon. Gentleman about that, because there may be some very good reasons for it. I call that day-to-day management. But suppose that I found that the train was an hour and twenty minutes late every day for a month, then I should begin to think that there was something wrong with the administration of this branch of the railway. In other words, it is a question of degree. If a thing is repeated and repeated, it means that there is some defect which should be checked. I agree that day-to-day management and the minute details, which in the normal way are dealt with by those who run businesses, should in the same way be left to the boards.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask a question?

Captain Crookshank: I would much rather make my own speech, unless it is a really interesting question.

Mr. Stokes: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say then that if a private manufacturer of machinery is consistently late with his deliveries, the Board of Trade ought to have an equal power to intervene?

Captain Crookshank: That has nothing in the world to do with it. I should like to throw the ball back to the hon. Member by saying that I hope his firm will not get into any difficulties of that kind as a result of the very fine stand they are taking on behalf of the Poles. While we want to get away from investigating day-to-day management, there may come a moment when day-to-day management merges into the larger question of administration.
Having said that, I should like to lay down a second proposition, which the House may also feel inclined to accept. That is, that all of us must claim the undoubted right to put down any Question on the Order Paper. The third proposition would be the converse of that, that it is for the Minister, and no one else, not even Mr. Speaker—and I say this with all respect—or the House authorities, to decide whether he will answer a Question or not; the responsibility must rest there. We must have the right to put down Questions. It does not matter if the Order Paper is doubled in size, and

it does not matter if the Minister says, "I am not going to answer Question Nos. 1 to 50" The Question must be allowed to be put on the Paper, and the Minister can say, as he does now, in the case of his own Department, "It is contrary to public policy to answer it," or, "This is not the sort of thing with which I ought to deal." Let the Minister decide.
It is all right so long as the Minister—and these are the governing words—has the support of the House in his attitude. That is the test. If he can carry the House with him he must be considered to be right. The Minister should be entitled to say "No," provided he has the support of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "How much support?"] I do not think a Minister will have very much doubt as to the way in which he has the support of the House in handling Questions at Question time. I am supported in expressing that view by something which you, Mr. Speaker, said on 4th December, when nearly everybody of importance had a preliminary go at this problem. You said, Sir, on that occasion—and I hope I may be allowed to quote it:
The hon. Member's remedy, and the House's remedy, is to put down a Motion of Censure on the Minister, or something of that sort, for refusing to reply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th December, 1947; Vol. 445, c. 571.]
Another alternative, which would not be within your power to say Mr. Speaker, is that those who disagree with the Minister should spend their time in trying, first of all, to get rid of him and, secondly, in trying to get rid of the Government. It seems to me to be a fairly reasonable proposition to say that the Minister should have the deciding voice provided he has the support of the House. If he has not the support of the House then the House can take action.
I hope that these three propositions may be considered to be, roughly, the view of the House. Anyhow, we shall see as the Debate proceeds. I do not want to tread on dangerous ground, but may I express the hope, Mr. Speaker, that under your guidance a very generous view might be taken as to the admissibility of Questions? Let as many Questions appear as may be; let there be no great rigidity; let Questions be put down. I particularly ask that generosity should be shown in allowing Questions of a similar nature. The rule against repetition is that a Question


must not be put down if it has already been asked, but sometimes that is extended, or there is a risk, if the Minister refuses to answer the Question, of it being said, "Last week the Minister would not answer a similar Question." I think that real repetition in this case should be very narrowly drawn; the repetition should be repetition of the same Question, the same case or the same grievance, but a similar case or a similar grievance should be allowed to appear in the Question on the Paper. The Minister may still say, "I am not going to answer," but that will give our constituents, consumers and owners, the feeling that at any rate the point has been put forward, and that somebody, somewhere, will have to direct his mind to the problem. That is what we are here for. I would therefore ask, Sir, that great generosity and leniency should be shown in the matter of admissibility of Questions.
All I have said up to now deals with the aspect of grievances, and I now want to say a few words about the aspect of information. In some cases Ministers have been given great powers to secure information. The Minister of Transport, under his Transport Act, is, I think, permitted to get almost anything he wants in relation to property and the activities of the Transport Commission. If he can do that, I do not see why he should not act as a sort of clearing-house so far as we are concerned. If we want information and he can get it, if it is right that we should ask him and he can get it, I believe he should bring it back.
I am fortified in that by my experience as Secretary for Mines for four years, when the mines were under private ownership. At that time there was a constant stream of Questions asking for statistical information, particularly from South Wales, as the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) will know particularly well. There were Questions about the machinery being used, hours of labour, and any number of things. All of it was statistical and purely factual information. The Questions were usually unstarred Questions, and my Department and I were able to give the House the information which was required. It would be the height of irony if, today, Members of this House, who could get that information in the days of private enterprise, could not get it now that the mines have been taken over by

the State. That would be too stupid for words.
So, I ask that that convention, at least, should be established, that factual, statistical, non-controversial, non-political information which can be obtained by the Minister should be given to Members if they want it. I think it is a reasonable proposal to make.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): It would be strictly relevant to this argument if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could now tell us what information was given in the days when he was Secretary for Mines, when the mines were under private enterprise, that is not now given by the Ministry of Fuel and Power. Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman be specific?

Captain Crookshank: No.

Mr. Morrison: I thought not.

Captain Crookshank: Do not let us make a point of it.

Mr. Morrison: I do. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is sunk.

Captain Crookshank: Surely, the right hon. Gentleman knows me better than that. Surely, he is not now going to say that the Ministry of Fuel and Power will continue for all time in its present mammoth size. I think most people imagined that once the nationalised industries had been established Minis, tries would become very small again. Of course, if the Ministry of Fuel and Power is to collect all the statistics as well, then Heaven protect us from the size of the bureaucracy we shall be building.

Mr. Morrison: What is the answer to my question?

Captain Crookshank: If the Ministry of Fuel and Power has the information all well and good. Cadit quœstio. But we are in an entirely new field; we still do not know what will be made available to us. If information is asked for which is not available in the Ministry of Fuel and Power that information could be secured by the Minister by asking the Coal Board. If it is reasonable for hon. Members to ask Ministers for that information, no hindrance should be put in the way. That is all I am asking for.

Mr. Morrison: That is a totally different issue.

Captain Crookshank: I shall be very interested to hear how it is different. It does not affect what I am asking for, which is that the full information which hon. Members want to have, should be made available to them. If Departments have not got it and the boards and commissions have, then the Minister should be the channel through whom it comes. That is all. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not think that I am sunk; and I hope that he is not sunk. I was just about to conclude and I am sorry that I have been carried off.
All I ask of the right hon. Gentleman, as the Leader of the House, is that he should go very slow in this matter. Do not let him go shutting doors with a bang today. This is only the first Debate on this topic. I have no doubt that we shall have many more until we have got it settled and cleared up; so let him be open-minded and remember that this is a new system. Because we do not approve of it, does not affect the question we are raising today. We have deliberately not made these industries State services so that the employees are not State servants, and, therefore, they are not, from the point of view of questions, in exactly the same position as the ordinary staff of a Department. They have legal remedies not open to Crown employees. On the other hand, these are great State monopolies which belong to the State and are paid for by the State, and Parliament is supreme. We have to have a halfway house by which Questions can be put and answers given or not given, as the case may be, and with the general national genius for compromise, I have no doubt that we shall get an answer sooner or later. I doubt whether we shall get it today as a result of this Debate; but there is no harm in that, as we are discussing this today for the first time.
I conclude by reiterating my own personal views, which are these: The first proposition is that the Minister, whoever he is, must answer with regard to his statutory duties. The second proposition is that Members have the undoubted right to put down Questions on grievances and when seeking for information. The third proposition is that Ministers have the right to decline to give answers provided they continue to have the support of the House in the position which they take up. If they do decline, they must be ready to

justify themselves and to satisfy Parliament that their action in refusing to reply is fully justified. To lay down the practice in matters of this kind is not for the Government or the Opposition, but for the whole House. That is why today this Debate is taking place not on a specific Motion, but on an Adjournment Motion, so that no one is hampered and no decision will be taken.
If anyone asks what will be the outcome of this Debate, I should imagine it depends on whether you, in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, find that there is a general sense of agreement on one or two or more of the propositions that I have put forward. I am sure that I can speak for the whole House in saying that we would leave ourselves in your hands to see that the general sense of the House is rightly interpreted. If, later on, you find it necessary to be fortified by something of a more formal nature, then it would be for someone, whether the Government or a senior private Member, as often happened in the past in these matters, to come forward with some kind of formal Resolution to clarify the issue. I hope that as the result of what is said today, you may be able to come to some general conclusion, if I may respectfully use the word, for your guidance.

4.5 P.m.

Mr. Bowles: At the risk of being told that I have fallen for the Tories, I say that I agree almost completely with the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank). He said that under these Acts certain powers have been given to the Minister to give general instructions. I can quote from the Acts, which I have here. He was quite right, I think, when he said that the Minister was accountable in this House for carrying out or for failing to carry out the instructions which he had the power to give. I suggest to the House that even though in these nationalisation Acts we have the position in which a Minister is authorised to give directions of a general character in the national interest, that does not mean that Parliament has legislated against the Minister being responsible even for the day-to-day running of these boards. I do not know whether I am right. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to a question of mine yesterday, said that no one knew the law, except the House of Lords in a judicial capacity.


Therefore, my view, I expect, is as good as that of anyone else, and I do not think Parliament has legislated against the liability of Ministers to answer for the actions, even the day-to-day actions, of their own boards.
I would like to approach this matter from the point of view not only of the House of Commons as a whole, vis-a-vis the Government, but also from the point of view of what we believe in, namely, Socialism. One of the reasons why we believe in the nationalisation of industry is that we believe that with public responsibility and public accountability to this House, as representative of the nation, we shall get more efficient enterprises. That is not, of course, the only reason why we believe in Socialism. We believe in it for other reasons, namely, that it means the transference of industrial and economic power from private hands to public hands. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said that there was really no control by this House over the I.C.I. or any of the big monopolies, or over any industry at all. It may be that Ministerial pressure may be brought to bear on suppliers of raw materials in connection with my hon. Friend's industry, but otherwise there is no responsibility on any Minister to say that a firm that is manufacturing, let us say in Ipswich, is to have more steel, except under emergency regulations in force at the present time.
Therefore, we believe, in the first place, that it is by keeping the persistent, vigilant eye of hon. Members of this House on the industries for which the right hon. Members on the Front Bench are responsible that we can see that the efficiency we want is accomplished. I hope that the House will agree with me about that. My right hon. Friend the Lord President will, I hope, keep an open mind. I think that he is generally an open-minded person, particularly on a new matter of this kind. I hope that he will not feel bound to adhere to his statement in the House on 4th December last and that he can go further than that. As a Socialist, I object to the belief that by setting up these boards, we can get a position in which there is no Ministerial accountability to this House. We have heard about day-to-day management. Obviously, that is a very difficult question, and, therefore, not being willing to

depart from my principles—I do not hedge on this matter at all—I say that in day-to-day management, hon. Members, on the responsibility given to them, should be able to put down Questions.
The Minister of Transport was asked recently whether he agreed with a special train being run to the Cheltenham races tomorrow. His answer was, "This is a matter for the Transport Commission," which, to my mind, is completely unsatisfactory. The day-to-day running of a train may be a matter for the Transport Commission, but, frankly, on a matter of this kind, and particularly at a time of crisis, it seems completely wrong that the Minister of Transport should say that this is a matter for the Transport Commission, and leave it at that. When it comes to a question of not running something, for instance, not running the Tudors by British South American Airways after the unfortunate crash the other day, the Minister of Civil Aviation rightly, in my opinion, ordered the grounding of the machines until certain inquiries had been carried out. Therefore, when it comes to the question of running special trains to the racecourse at Cheltenham, that is a matter for the Transport Commission, but when it is a question of the running of aircraft, the Minister, because of some other reason—and in my opinion rightly so—informs the House that he is going to have this type of aircraft grounded until an inquiry has taken place.
I beg the Lord President of the Council not to take away the power of this House, and, if I may use words which I seem to have heard, not to thrust on to these boards the ultimate responsibility for what they are doing. If that happens, then quite obviously the boards are not responsible to the Minister, the Minister is not responsible for them to this House, and we have completely irresponsible organisations running our nationalised industries, the very thing against which we have been fighting ever since we have been the Movement.
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has made up his mind, but I hope he will think about this matter in the sense in which I have put it forward. It is recognised that Members of Parliament, particularly when they are new Members, put down little constituency Ques-


tions like, "Why did Nuneaton not get a sufficient supply of tomatoes last week? "When they have been here a few years they do not bother putting down Questions from that narrow, constituency point of view. Perhaps it is good practice to start one's Parliamentary life doing it, but as time goes on one knows that one can write to the Minister of Food and get the answer without wasting Parliamentary time. The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough referred to the late running of trains. There is nothing wrong with putting Questions down about a train being late, particularly if it is always late. An hon. Member is entitled to put it down, but, on the other hand, I have seen such Questions scorned out of the House, if they are put down day after day and deal only with some little thing. The House of Commons has ways of avoiding waste of Parliamentary time, when time is being used up on a silly thing about which an hon. Member could get a reply if he bothered to write to the Minister concerned or to the local consultative council set up in connection with the nationalisation schemes.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Or put it down for a written answer.

Mr. Bowles: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Yes, it could be put down for a written answer, because we want to make as much use as possible of the Parliamentary time allowed for oral Questions. I do not think that the House will find the Order Paper for very long cluttered up with small Questions about trains being late. We have got to the position that we wish to sustain our position here in the House of Commons in regard to the nationalised railways being run by the British Transport Commission. It is true that the old railway directors have gone and we have some new directors. I do not know whether they are any better or any worse, but if the Minister of Transport is making that Commission responsible only to itself and not to the Minister, we are really getting to the position of the old railway companies with the old railway directors. Frankly, under those conditions it seems to me we have achieved nothing, except to set up an organisation not responsible to this House, to which we are prepared to hand out public money for recapitali-

sation, but over which we have not got what we want, namely, Parliamentary control, watchfulness, power, and authority. I hope my hon. Friends on this side of the House will agree with me about that.
I want to say a word now about there being too many Questions. There is the Ministry of National Insurance set up by this House. How many Questions on National Insurance have been put down in the past week? Six or eight? The Ministry I believe has a staff of 40,000—I may be wrong in that figure, but I think it is somewhere about it—and we have got to deal with insurance benefits and so on. How many Questions appear on the Order Paper each week. I should say an average of 5, 7 or perhaps 10. [An HON. MEMBER: "The new scheme has not started yet."] It has started, but supposing it does start on 5th July in a bigger way, are we then going to have a Question on the Order Paper because a nurse in some hospital left a pail outside the door and someone fell over it? Of course not. I do not fear for one moment that we are going to be worried too much by little Questions.
There is a view held by certain hon. Gentlemen that the Tory Party is going to continue picking at the nationalised industries. I may be a little simple about this, but I ask why should they not? Why should we not? That efficiency, in which I believe, will be promoted only by Parliamentary vigilance and interest. The right hon. and gallant Member for Gains-borough referred to the numerous Questions about the coal industry which were put to him when it was privately run. I believe in the nationalisation of coal, and when the Coal Board and the mines are working efficiently and when the latter are properly equipped, these small and petty Questions will pass from the political arena into the limbo of forgotten things. As I said, I may be simple about this, but that is my view. As the industries have just been nationalised they are still like a red rag to the bulls on the other side of the House. When they are two or three years' old, hon. Members opposite will soon get tired of putting down their heads and rushing at the red rag of the nationalised industries.
There are three things I want to say. First, the Ministers have the right under these Acts to appoint their own boards. If


a Minister does that independently and carefully, with proper selection and delegation of his duty to the right people, who, in their turn, will select the right sub-boards, a great deal of anxiety, which perhaps is in the minds of those in charge of the nationalised industries, will disappear; but it is up to the Minister responsible to choose the right people to do the right job. My second point is that I want to make one exception. I think I am justified in doing so. If it comes to a Question about the conditions of the staff, the Minister will be perfectly entitled to say that the question of staff conditions, say, in the coalmines is one to be settled by the usual machinery between employer and trade union, which is working satisfactorily. This aspect of the nationalised industries is a matter from which we should keep aloof. Therefore, the Minister would always be entitled to say that staff conditions ought to be settled in the usual way, and through the machinery which has existed in these industries for the last 50 years. I am perfectly happy to leave such Questions there.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman was quite right in saying that we have not adopted the Civil Service method like, the Post Office in taking over these industries. It has been the definite policy of His Majesty's Government—and I agree—that that should not be the case, and, therefore, there is no similarity between these industries and the Post Office. However, because of that, this House of Commons is not any less interested or less entitled to have all the information that it requires in order to probe the management of the industry concerned in the interests of efficient working.
I should like to take as an example the War Office, though it may be said that it is a silly kind of example. However, the soldiers are under the War Office whether they be in companies, battalions or corps under various officers. In the last resort the Secretary of State for War is responsible for instance for any ill-treatment of any soldier. If anything happens to a soldier, he is responsible for him to this House of Commons. It may be said that the fighting machine is not an industry, but each week we put a lot of Questions on the Order Paper to the War Office. It is salutary for an organisation like the Army that these Questions should be put on the Order Paper. Therefore, I say that

we should not allow any gap between even the day-to-day affairs of these industries and the House of Commons.
That is my proposition and I should think that any Socialist would agree that it is right. Hon. Members do not always agree about this, but I am not at all worried about the question of the Older Paper being filled up and people being disgruntled and disheartened and chucking up their jobs and going out. I remember the speech of the Minister of Supply last week in which he said that it was the questioning in the House of Commons about, say, B.O.A.C., the Debates about B.O.A.C., and Press interest in B.O.A.C. which made these civil aviation Corporations—this was his argument—even more enterprising than could reasonably have been expected. That was the argument the Government used in their own defence one week, and I do not see why it should not be used on this occasion. I am most happy to have been able to address the House on this matter because it is important and vital. I hope that the Debate will be considered very carefully by the Government. I agree with the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough that it is not a party matter. We want to get this properly working and to have Parliamentary control over the industries which the country is taking over, through our efforts, week by week.

4.22 p.m.

Colonel Ropner: Although the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) spoke from a frankly Socialistic point of view, I am sure that I may assure him that we on this side of the House agreed with a great deal of what he had to say. I am sure that the House is almost unanimous in endorsing the remarks of my right hon. and gallant Friend of the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank), that the problem which faces the House should be treated as an entirely new one. I do not think that we have much to learn by looking for precedents from our pre-war experience of the B.B.C. or by looking into our war-time practice as, for instance, with regard to the Questions which the Minister of Transport answered then. In deciding this issue of how we are to conduct our Business, I am sure we shall act wisely if we regard the problem as a new one which has arisen because of the recent


legislation implementing the policy of nationalisation. Because I hope to carry hon. Gentlemen with me in the remarks I have to make, let me say that I do not intend to make this an occasion for attacking in any way the policy of nationalisation.
It is a fact that, under recent legislation, difficulties, misunderstandings and complications have arisen in connection with the asking and answering of Question, and it is to those two problems that I will entirely confine my remarks. It has already been pointed out that these difficulties have arisen because the nationalised industries have been brought under the control of commissions or boards and are not controlled directly by Government Departments. Nationalised industries have been awarded a degree of autonomy, and for that reason the Ministers most closely concerned have been relieved of a degree of responsibility.
This problem, which the whole House will agree is a new one, is also one which assumes day by day greater and greater importance because for the first time millions of men and women are now directly employed in these nationalised industries, for the first time hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money is involved, and for the first time every soul in this country—man, woman or child—is concerned because we are all consumers of the goods or services which are the products of the nationalised industries. Moreover, if the Labour Party continues in power and if that party in the end carries out its programme of the nationalisation of all the means of production, distribution and exchange, and if all this extension of Socialism is effected or operated by the creation of new boards or commissions, there must be a correspondingly growing range of matters of public importance in front of which the iron curtain of official secrecy will fall.
This Debate should cover two entirely different questions, but questions which are closely related. The first is: What Questions are in Order? What Questions may be asked? The second question is: What Questions are Ministers prepared to answer? I hope to submit for the consideration of the House a proposal which I think might solve the difficulties which

have arisen in connection with both of those propositions. Subject to the express will of the House, the answer to the first question must be determined by you, Mr. Speaker, and the answer to the second question must be decided by the appropriate Minister, but both Mr. Speaker and the Minister are at present guided by the case law which has arisen as a result of the many rulings which have been given in dealing with the admissibility of Questions. The Clerk of this House in his most valuable book, which can fairly be described as a readable edition of Erskine May, sets out on page 150 an essential qualification to render a Question technically in Order. He says this:
A Question should be directed to a Minister officially responsible for the subject-matter with which it deals. (This rule is held to cover not only Questions requiring action, but also those seeking for information).
That is the Ruling which presumably determines both the decision of Mr. Speaker with regard to admissibility and the decision of the Minister as to whether or not he replies to a Question.
As, therefore, both the admissibility and the obligation placed on the Minister to reply are dependent on the same considerations or the same rules, it should be true to say both that a Question allowed to appear on the Order Paper is one which the Minister should answer and, conversely, that a Question disallowed by Mr. Speaker must be one which in any case the Minister would not answer. In present circumstances, such is not the case. As hon. Gentlemen who are here at Question Time will appreciate, Questions which have passed the Table are refused an answer by Ministers or, if they are answered, responsibility for the contents of the answer is disclaimed. On the other hand, on frequent occasions, Questions which hon. Members, after a careful study of the relevant Act, consider should be answered, and would be answered if they were allowed, are not allowed by the Table. They are not allowed past the Table because Mr. Speaker, or his advisers, interpret differently from hon. Members the complicated, abstruse and intricate Sections of some Act which attempts to define Ministerial responsibility.
To my mind none of all this is surprising. I agree with the hon. Member for Nuneaton that matters of policy merge


imperceptibly into matters of day to day administration. It is bound to be to some extent an arbitrary line if one attempts rigidly to define what, on the one hand, is a matter of policy and, on the other hand, is a matter of day to day administration. Moreover, I suggest that if that line is drawn accurately one day, it will be in the wrong place the next day; that matters of policy, in time, become questions of administration, and matters of administration may boil up over a period of years, months, weeks or even minutes into questions of high policy. But someone has to take the difficult decision, either you, Mr. Speaker, with the help of your advisers, or the Minister concerned. If a matter is referred to, for instance, the Minister of Fuel and Power, it may be that the decision he gives is governed by whether his monthly bath was hot or cold on the morning on which he was asked to give the decision. It is impossible to draw permanently an accurate line between administration and policy.
If the House, as I hope, is in general agreement with the remarks I have made, I think there is no hon. Member present who would not admit that there is something wrong somewhere, and I venture to repeat the second question which I postulated at the beginning of my speech: what questions are Ministers prepared to answer? I would like to change the language a little and ask: what questions should Ministers be prepared to answer? Or even more strongly, what questions will Parliament insist that Ministers shall answer? In my view, sooner or later, Parliament will insist that Ministers shall answer the same range of questions in the case of nationalised industries as they would if those industries were directly and entirely controlled by Government Departments.
I cannot go so far as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough in suggesting that there should be no limitation to the number of Questions which one can put on the Order Paper with regard to nationalised industries. I think the limit should be the same as in the case of, say the Post Office, the Army, Navy or Air Force. I know that there will be Ministerial reluctance to see the door opened as wide as that; I know that in that reluctance they will be supported by civil servants; I know it may be said that if you allow

Questions over a wide range, these nationalised industries will be swamped with Questions and that enterprise will be stifled; but I cannot agree, any more than the right hon. Gentleman opposite agrees, with allegations of that sort. If they have any weight at all, those seem to me to be arguments against nationalisation and not arguments against the right which Members of Parliament should have to acquire information about those industries which have been nationalised.
As the hon. Member for Nuneaton rightly said, if it is possible in wartime to ask the Secretary of State for War why a bugler has lost a button in Burma and if, even with that possibility, we can still win a war, as we did, then there is no fear that a nationalised industry will be swamped out by needless, thoughtless, and unnecessary Questions.

Mr. Bowles: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman was referring to something I did not say. As long as he understands I did not say it, that is all right. I did not refer to wartime questioning.

Colonel Ropner: Then I apologise. I thought he did. I thought he gave an example which was drawn from the War Office.

Mr. Bowles: Yes, the War Office.

Colonel Ropner: I want now to repeat the first question: What Questions are in Order? What Questions may be asked? Here again I would like slightly to change my question and ask, what Questions should be allowed? Or, again rather more strongly, what Questions will the House insist should be allowed. Again I answer that, in my view, sooner or later, this House will insist that Mr. Speaker shall allow the same range of Questions as is customary in the case of those Departments which are run by Departments of State, and Questions will have to be allowed in the case of nationalised industries as if those industries were run directly and entirely by a Government Department.
The rules bearing on the admissibility of Questions form no part of the ancient usage of this House. They cannot even claim the dignity of being part of our Parliamentary practice. They are not even included in our more modern Standing Orders, and the position is merely that they are derived from numerous Rulings which have built up case law


governing the framing of Questions. I would ask the House to note very carefully this further extract from Sir Gilbert Campion's book and, if I may add, with respect, Sir, I hope you will note it too. It is this:
A Ruling once given, continues to be applied until it is revoked by a subsequent Ruling.
I want to make a small digression here, but it has some bearing on the conclusion I will reach. Sir, the House, as I think you will know, was a little startled the other day when you said that you went to, or telephoned, Ministers to ask advice with regard to whether Questions were in Order or not. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I do not think any other course is open to Mr. Speaker in the circumstances as they exist today, unless indeed there is an enormous accretion to his staff. Even then I believe, differences would still arise as to the admissability of Questions as between Mr. Speaker and Ministers, between Mr. Speaker and hon. Members, and between hon. Members and Ministers. In my view, with all humility, I say the fault is certainly not yours Mr. Speaker. It arises from recent legislation, combined with current Rulings, by which you now consider yourself bound.
The combination of current Rulings and recent legislation has given rise to a new problem. It is a problem which must be solved, a problem which will grow in importance, and which will arise on more and more frequent occasions. If you will exercise your right to modify to the extent I have indicated with all humility and respect, the rules governing Questions, you will not only free yourself from an embarrassing position, but will also extricate the House from its difficulties, and at the same time act in accordance with the view of the majority of Members.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of Order. I do not know whether you, Sir, could assist the House in this. We have a time limit on this Debate, and this is something quite new. I do not know whether it is the intention of the Government to wait until the Debate is concluded and then to reply, or whether it is intended that the Government view, if there is a Government view, shall be indicated earlier, so that we can be in possession of it, and ask questions on it. It would be a great help to have the Government's view on this matter fairly early.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I have no control over the Government in that respect. We must wait to see what the Government want to do.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: The hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner) and the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) said that this was a new problem and a new field. I was a little surprised to hear that, and I think it is instructive to look back a little. Not only was there the outstanding example of the B.B.C. before the war, but also trading organisations, the Agricultural Marketing Board in particular, and another precedent, to which I will refer in a moment. The Government before the war took a very definite view that Questions should not be asked about such bodies as the marketing boards, or about the affairs of the B.B.C. The Ruling was very strict indeed in those days—more strict, I think, than it is today. That does not put the official Opposition in a very strong position to object to what was suggested by the Lord President of the Council the other day. I regret that, because I think none of us must allow the rights of Members of Parliament and the rights of the House to be curtailed if we can possibly help it.
The most interesting example is a long way back. It was in 1933 and 1934, when the Government of the day attempted to set up an Unemployment Assistance Board which was to be right outside political control. I must remind hon. Members of the actions of His Majesty's Opposition about that time. I was not in the House, but I well remember reading the Debates, and I have refreshed my memory. Both the Labour Party and the Liberals of that day opposed the proposal violently and energetically. An attempt was made to set up a board which would administer a great social service, and the only right which Members of Parliament were to have was the right to approve or disapprove, of the rates in the scales of assistance. They could not amend the rates, or interfere with the day-to-day administration. The policy of the Government was that Questions were not to be asked about the administration of the scales which this House had been asked to accept en bloc.
That was one of the worst examples of an attempt to take a great issue outside Parliamentary control, and it was absolutely wrong. What is interesting is that it failed. We cannot take away from this House the responsibility for matters which are of public interest and public importance. Without going into the whole of the details, I will say that the Government had to give way, and hon. Members and Parliament as a whole have enjoyed very much greater rights, although not complete rights, in dealing with that problem since.
I do not believe that if today the Government tried to take the question of coal right away from the House of Commons they could do it. A situation would arise in which the public and hon. Members would demand that the main issues should be discussed and should be the subject of Questions and consideration by this House. I am confident that, on the big issues, neither this Government nor any other Government can take away the rights of Members of Parliament to ask general Questions. The difficulty is to draw the line as to where a Question is dealing with policy and where it is dealing with administration. That line may be in a different place at different times. The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) said that he thought it quite right for a Minister to say that Questions on wages and conditions of service, for instance, in one of the Air Corporations, was one that should be dealt with by the boards, and not by the Minister.

Mr. Bowles: By the negotiating machinery in the industry.

Mr. Roberts: The board negotiating with the trade unions, or through whatever organisation is set up. That may be all right when everything goes right, but it would not be all right if there were a big transport strike, or some other really big issue arising. It may not be all right where the question of the "closed shop" comes up. We cannot lay down that Parliament should not have the right to ask a Minister to make a statement on an issue of that sort, on some occasion in the future.

Mr. Bowles: What I meant was that I think the Minister should be entitled to say, "I cannot discuss this matter of wage claims, which is under negotiation in the ordinary way; I am leaving it to

the ordinary wage machinery." I do not mean that we must not inquire about a transport strike, or anything like that.

Mr. Roberts: I believe I come to the same conclusion as does the hon. Member, but for rather different reasons. I wish to safeguard the position of hon. Members in asking Questions and I do, not want to give the Minister a right to say that there is a Ruling, an agreement, or something in an Act, saying that we should not ask Questions on this, and that he must not answer. I do not have, the same idea about public corporations as does the hon. Member for Nuneaton. Frankly, I do not think the hon. Member has got his ideas quite clear about them. At one moment in his speech he was saying, "What is the good of these new boards which have been set up; how do they differ from the old railway boards of directors?" I think he wants the old sort of nationalisation, the Post Office sort of nationalisation, in which the Minister is responsible for the complete administration. If I have misinterpreted the hon. Member, I am willing to give way.

Mr. Bowles: I am obliged to the hon. Member. I was saying that, as far as I could see, there would be no difference between the old railway companies and the British Transport Commission if the British Transport Commission was not responsible to this House. The directors of the railway companies were at least responsible to their shareholders. These people are completely irresponsible.

Mr. Roberts: I want these corporations to be responsible ultimately to the Minister, and the Minister to be responsible to this House, but I want the corporations to have a considerable amount of independence in managing their affairs. I do not want them to be run from Whitehall. Therefore, I see the difficulty that if we can ask Questions, and if we can suggest to the Minister that he ought to give directions on every matter of administration, the Minister will, in fact, be running these new corporations, and the boards will lose an important part of their independence and sense of responsibility.
The old tradition of the Civil Service is that the Minister is responsible for every action that a civil servant takes. I do not want the Minister to be responsible for every action that every employee of


all the public corporations takes. I want to safeguard our right to ask Questions, but I also want to safeguard the Minister's lack of responsibility for every action which every employee takes, and I want the Minister to be able to say freely, "This is a matter which I have left to the board; I can give you information, but I am not taking responsibility."

Mr. S. Silverman: Is there not a complete safeguard, in that under the normal practice of the House, as was indicated by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened the Debate, the Minister is always perfectly free not to answer, and is equally free to say, "I would like to give you a reason, but I can only give you an answer with information in it because, under the Act which set up this board, I have no power and no responsibility "? Thus the hon. Member would get the right he wants, the right to ask Questions and the right to have information, without compelling the Minister to answer.

Mr. Roberts: I am obliged to the hon. Member for that intervention. I come now to the next point. The Lord President of the Council challenged the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough when he said that we were not getting as much statistical information about coal as we had previously. I have an example of this to give to the House. I offered to the Table yesterday a Question which was not accepted. It was:
To ask the Minister of Fuel and Power how many coal washing plants have been ordered since the National Coal Board began operations?
Is that a Question asking for statistical information or is it not?

Mr. H. Morrison: I did not say that every Question asking about statistics would be in Order. The hon. Member is completely off the rails. What I was challenging the right hon. and gallant Gentleman about was whether the public statistical information about the mining industry today is, as he implied, less than it was in the days when he was Secretary for the Mines Department.

Mr. Roberts: As I understand the Lord President, there is more information published now, but that is not necessarily to say that the means of obtaining the

information is through a Question to the Minister of Fuel and Power. I take it that the Lord President is not claiming that we are now getting more information, or as much as we did before, through Questions. I think that hon. Members who attempt to ask Questions will agree with me that we are not getting more information as a result of Questions, because our Questions are not now accepted. It may be that there are the means of getting information, but it is not by means of Question time that we do so. That is the point of our objection.
I do not think that the right of asking Questions can be divorced from other means of eliciting information and of stating views in this House. It is true that Questions are sometimes used for expressing views as well as for asking questions, but we have to be careful that what is now happening is not the thin end of the wedge which will prevent us from having free Debates on Supply Days or on the Adjournment about the affairs of public corporations. We have to be very careful that the right of this House to examine expenditure is safeguarded. There are at least two Committees of this House, the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Estimates, both of which may wish to deal with questions about the financial affairs of Government corporations. I imagine that there is no doubt that when the Government are giving a subsidy or making a direct Treasury contribution, these two Committees would be completely free to examine the financial affairs of those corporations. It is not so clear whether they could do so when the Government were not giving direct assistance in some form or other.
I think that both these Committees ought to have the right of examining the operations of these public bodies. It may be that at the present time some bodies which have been in existence for many years—marketing boards, for example—should be re-examined to see whether they are still fulfilling their functions efficiently. These bodies may or may not be receiving direct assistance from the Exchequer, but it is surely drawing a completely arbitrary line to say that where, in fact, they are making sufficient profit or, in cases where profit is not involved, where their income and expenditure balances, this House cannot examine their operations, whereas


if income and expenditure do not balance, it can? Surely that is altogether a wrong distinction? That right may be completely safeguarded, but I would like to have an assurance from the Lord President that there will be no interference in the right of these two Committees to call for witnesses and papers and to examine the accounts of these public corporations if they wish to do so.
There is a further point which would assist Members of Parliament. Ministers are now in the habit, sometimes, in answer to a Question, of referring the Member direct to the board concerned. That is rather an anomalous position because the old tradition of the Civil Service is that a Member must not go direct to a civil servant. Members often do, but they always run the risk of being told that they must go direct to the Minister. As I say, Ministers are now beginning to refer Members direct to boards. That position ought to be clarified. Have Members the right to go direct to boards, or can they do so only with the permission of the Minister? I would like to see them have the right of approaching the boards and having a reasonable expectation of a full and complete answer.
Question Time fulfils two functions in particular, as well as many others. One of those functions is to obtain information. That may be a valuable function, but it does not, necessarily, assist the main object of these boards, which is that the public should be better served. It is not a very constructive purpose, but it is a valuable one. I consider that constructive criticism must come very much more in Debate or through the Committees of this House. The other great function of Question Time has always been to ensure that individuals get justice from Government Departments. I think that we, as Members of Parliament, should stand out very firmly still to be allowed to use Question Time to ventilate individual grievances. If a board has take an action which may, or may not, be justified, it should be possible for an hon. Member to put down a Question about that individual case, and to have the Minister give a reply on behalf of the board. That is one of the fundamental rights of the House of Commons, and I hope we can still maintain it.

5.2 p.m.

Mr. Driberg: The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) raised one extremely important new point which had not been touched upon so far in the Debate. He referred to the growing practice, which, he said, Ministers are apparently encouraging, by which Members of Parliament communicate direct with boards or commissions. If that is so—and I hope my right hon. Friend will answer this point—and if that practice is growing, does not that become an undesirable day-to-day interference by Members of Parliament in the running of these nationalised industries? Would it not be just as irritating and disheartening to the people in control of these boards and commissions as would be Questions in this House? If it be said in reply—as it may well be—that hon. Members will exercise discretion, and not write letters every day about every detail, I would point out that, of course, lion. Members exercise discretion about the Questions which they put on the Order Paper. They do not put down a Question every day about the 9.15 train from Lincoln, and so on.
A secondary point which arises is that, at present, when an hon. Member takes up a case with a Minister simply by letter, and not necessarily by putting down a Question, I have always understood that that communication is privileged, both the letter of the hon. Member and the reply of the Minister. I take it that communications between hon. Members and these boards or commissions may not be so protected. It would be worth finding out about that, because, although it is difficult to think of an example offhand, obviously a case may arise in which an hon. Member's complaint to a board might have to contain matter which would be libellous, if it were not protected by Privilege.
The course of this Debate has shown that this is not a matter for the Opposition alone. With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, I do not think that it is a matter on which the Opposition particularly can claim to press His Majesty's Government too hard, because it was they who, in some Standing Committees on these nationalisation Bills, did press very hard indeed against allowing day-to-day interference by Ministers. It is, however,


obviously a House of Commons matter. All of us, and I suggest especially those of us who are Socialists, must examine with anxious care and doubt anything which even seems to diminish the sovereignty of Parliament.
The argument against those who take the view that I am endeavouring to express, and which was expressed so ably and eloquently by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles), is the argument of efficiency. We would all agree that it is essential that the efficiency of nationalised industries should not be impaired in any way, but I think it is legitimate to instance the case of the General Post Office, which has already been mentioned. I agree that there is no exact parallel between the directly State-run General Post Office and the board or corporation of a nationalised industry. I would like my right hon. Friend to say whether there is any evidence at all that the General Post Office is less efficiently run because Questions about it appear on the Order Paper, than it would otherwise be. I do not believe for a moment that it is less efficient. Opinions may vary about the efficiency of the General Post Office, but I, personally, consider it an efficient Department. I am quite sure that, if anything, it is rather more efficient, because it is constantly stimulated by Questions in this House.
The other example which I consider it is fair to quote is that of the Ministry of Transport during the war. In those days we often saw on the Order Paper Questions about the 9.15 from Lincoln, and so on.

Mr. Bowles: It must be a bad train!

Mr. Driberg: My hon. Friend will appreciate that I am merely using the 9.15 from Lincoln as an example. That may have been simply because the 9.15 from Lincoln was so repeatedly unpunctual that it became a matter of wide public concern, or it may have been because in some way it illustrated a general principle, as did the case of the race train referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton—obviously a matter about which a Question could rightly be put down on the Order Paper. In any case, my point is that the Order Paper,

although it contained a good many Questions to the Minister of War Transport, was never unduly or intolerably burdened by Questions regarding the 9.15 from Lincoln. That never became a matter which wasted the time of the House as a whole, or the time of the Minister. Moreover, one did find, at least within my own experience, that the mere fact of putting down a Question about the 9.15 from Lincoln, if it was too often late, did mean that it became a good deal more punctual—for the next few months at any rate; and I suppose punctuality in a train is a form of efficiency.
There is another most important point which has not been referred to before, and I should be grateful if the Lord President of the Council could answer this point in particular. I gather that when the new National Health service comes into effect the Minister of Health is going to make himself directly responsible to this House for every detail of day-to-day administration, as well as for the general policy. He is not going to push it off by saying, "That is a matter for the Regional Hospital Boards," or that it would cause distress and inefficiency if——

Mr. H. Morrison: I am sorry to be so elementary, but it is really an utterly elementary point of Parliamentary procedure. The Health Act lays it down that the Minister takes over the hospitals. Other Acts lay it down that properties are vested in the boards. That is the point. Therefore, I am surprised that my hon. Friend should put his question. It is perfectly clear that if the hospitals are vested in the Minister, then the Minister will be prepared to answer anything about hospitals.

Mr. Driberg: My right hon. Friend really has not grasped my point. I am sorry to have to put it to him in such an elementary way; but I will try to repeat it in words of one syllable, so that he will be able to grasp it. Of course, I know that it is in the Act. If the other Acts were perhaps wrongly drafted in some way, then they ought to be amended, but that is a matter which we cannot discuss on the Adjournment. The point I am endeavouring to argue is this. It is said that if there are Questions in this House about the day-to-day administration of some nationalised industry or service that


will cause inefficiency, and delays, and nervous breakdowns in that industry or service. If that is so in the case of coal, electricity, or transport, why should it not be so in the case of the National Health Service also? It is a very complex administration.

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: Does not my hon. Friend appreciate that there is a great difference between running an industry and running something which is simply an administrative task?

Mr. Driberg: I realise that the two cases are not exactly analogous, but I should have thought that my hon. Friend might have felt more disposed to interrupt me on the G.P.O. My hon. Friend speaks of the National Health Service as "simply" an administrative job. I do not think it will be a simple one. There is an acute shortage of doctors and a continuing shortage of buildings. Many other difficulties will confront the people who will be running that service.
Of course, this procedure of Questions about nationalised industries is capable of abuse. If a section of hon. Members wanted to try to do the "dirty" on an industry and to wreck it by putting three Questions each on the Order Paper every day, that could be temporarily inconvenient. History has shown, however, that when any section of hon. Members of this House try to use the machinery of Parliament in anything like a wrecking way, Parliament quickly adapts its procedure to meet that situation.
From the point of view of Socialists—I say this, with the greatest respect, to my hon. Friends on this side of the House—it seems to me that one of the main human arguments for nationalisation is that it helps to protect the consumer and the worker from the irresponsible caprice of private enterprise, and particularly of monopolistic private enterprise—irresponsible in the strict, etymological sense of the word. Both consumer and worker have other protection, too, of course. The consumer has consumers' councils or committees. The workers' grievances are always properly dealt with by their unions, through the regular channels of negotiation. I suggest that in both respects Parliament should remain the final court of appeal. After all, if a Parliamentary Question is put down now to the Minister

of Labour about a trade dispute, he quite properly answers that the matter is, in effect, sub judice and that he is not in a position to interfere in it; but the Question can be put upon the Order Paper. Apart from particular trade disputes, hon. Members, and particularly trade union Members, have never been slow, rightly, to air general questions of the welfare and conditions of their constituents who are members of trade unions in the various industries.
I want to ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance on one other point. Some of us would like to know how this procedure applies to the Overseas Food, and Colonial Development Corporations which have been set up. I ask this question with particular reference to the welfare of the African people who will be concerned in great developments such as the groundnuts scheme. This is very important indeed. Many of the African people are already suspicious of that scheme, partly because it is being administered in the preliminary stages, for reasons which have been explained to this House, by the United Africa Company, and not by public enterprise at all. We must, therefore, be in a position to protect the welfare and the interests of our Colonial fellow-subjects of the Crown in Africa, as we have always been on other matters in the past. I hope that my right hon. Friend can give a definite assurance on that point.
It comes down to this, then: we hope that the Chair will exercise the utmost latitude in admitting Questions to the Order Paper, and that Ministers concerned will be generous in meeting us halfway, so to speak, and saying that they will make representations or, in occasional cases, when necessary will issue general directions to the boards or the commissions concerned. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity of meeting a foreign visitor to this House. He had just been listening, for the first time in his life, to Question Time and he was, as foreign visitors always are, greatly impressed by it. I asked him, however, what his further impressions were. He said that the only thing he had against Question Time was that it was ridiculous that the time of the House should be wasted with trivial, particular Questions about Mrs. Jones's pension and other special matters, which obviously should not have bee a put down upon the Paper. That foreign


visitor was a representative of the official Soviet News Agency. So I am just a little concerned to find my right hon. Friend tending in what seems to be a somewhat dangerously Muscovite direction.

Mr. H. Morrison: That remark is too provocative to be allowed to pass. Can my hon. Friend, who knows a lot about the Soviet Union, and its satellites, tell me where I can put my hand on a copy of the HANSARD of the Soviet Union that will give me a' complete record of all the Parliamentary Questions, hostile and friendly, supplementary questions, notices to raise matters on the Adjournment, and the moving of the Adjournment under Standing Order No. Io? If he can, I should be glad to see it.

Mr. Driberg: I do not think that my right hon. Friend can have heard the beginning of my anecdote, which was meant only as a passing jest, by way of peroration. I was specifically dissociating myself from the idea that anything for which a Minister is responsible is too trivial to be put down on the Order Paper of any Parliament. I wish that all the Parliaments in the world had as free and as useful a Question Time as we have. That is why I am sorry to find my right hon. Friend agreeing with an official representative of the Soviet News Agency in thinking that Question Time should be whittled down. My right hon. Friend must not go too Eastern-European, or he will have the National Executive after him.
Seriously—I am sorry to have gone on for so long, but I have had one or two interruptions—I agree that nationalised industries must be efficient. Of course they must. They must also—and I do not see why there need be any conflict between the two—be responsible, in the only sense in which that word has any meaning, which is to say that they must be answerable to the public for their conduct, through a Minister, in this House.

5.18 p.m.

Mr. Molson: If the Government have been under the impression that this Debate would take a party line, they will have had that impression removed by the speeches made by the hon. Members for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) and Maldon (Mr. Driberg). I am bound

to say that both those hon. Members go much further than I should wish to go in advocating interference by this House in the day-to-day administration of nationalised industries. I would contrast the moderate proposals put forward by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) with the far more extreme requests of the two hon. Gentlemen.

Mr. S. Silverman: Was there any difference?

Mr. Molson: There was a most distinct difference between what my right hon. and gallant Friend said and what those two hon. Gentlemen opposite said. This is not a matter upon which it was reasonable to interrupt me. I hope that the Lord President of the Council will do as my right hon. and gallant Friend suggested and not shut any doors. Obviously, we are embarking upon a new departure. It will be necessary for the House to move slowly and to gain experience as it goes in the degree to which Parliamentary interrogation can be useful without being harmful.
As the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts), who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Party, said, there is a considerable past history in this matter. The first point I would like to emphasise is that there is a clear logical difference between the refusal of the Table to allow a question to be put on the Order Paper on the ground that no Minister is responsible, and the refusal of a Minister to answer a question. There has been some criticism on various occasions of the attitude of the Table in this matter. However, as a matter of fact, this duty of the Table to refuse to admit to the Order Paper a question on a matter for which a Minister is not directly responsible goes back a long way. On 10th December, 1929, an hon. Member raised as a point of Order the refusal of the Chair to allow a question with regard to the B.B.C. to be put upon the Order Paper. There followed after that a long series of Debates and discussions ending with a Motion moved on 22nd February, 1933, by Mr. Charles Emmott, a Conservative Member at that time, in which the House decided that it was satisfied with the existing Charter of the British Broadcasting Company. It was decided that it would be contrary to the public interest for the Government or


Parliament to exercise any closer control than was already the practice.
Having said that, I feel that one must recognise also that the attitude taken by the Table cannot but be very much influenced by the attitude of the sponsoring Ministers. Actually, anyone who compares the wording of the Charter of the B.B.C. with the wording of the provisions of the Agricultural Marketing Act, could not avoid coming to the conclusion that the Postmaster-General, if he wished to do so, could exercise a much stricter control over the B.B.C. than the Minister of Agriculture could exercise over the marketing boards. Both Mr. Lees-Smith, who belonged to the Socialist Party, and Sir Kingsley Wood, who belonged to the Conservative Party, were completely in agreement and they were supported by successive Parliaments in the view that it would be unwise and undesirable for matters of programmes or day-to-day administration of the B.B.C. to be raised in the House and for the Postmaster-General to accept responsibility. On the other hand, although the Minister of Agriculture had no control over the marketing boards, and although he had not the powers which are granted by the Transport Act and the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act to obtain all the figures and facts from the boards, successive Ministers of Agriculture answered questions about the marketing boards usually with the preliminary, comment:
By courtesy of the Marketing Board, I am able to give the hon. Member the information which he desires.
That goes to show that the position of the Table is a very difficult one in trying accurately to construe the controlling words of the Charter or the Act if, in point of fact, Ministers like the Ministers of Agriculture were willing and, indeed, anxious to answer questions even on matters for which they were not directly responsible while Major Tryon, when he succeeded Sir Kingsley Wood, began to answer questions in the House for which Sir Kingsley Wood would never have accepted responsibility.
The influence of the policy of the Minister on the admissibility of Questions has been carried one stage further by a Ruling of the late Mr. Speaker Fitzroy, that when once a Minister had refused to answer a question, the Table was not to accept the same kind of question again in the future.

I understand that it is the doctrine that a Speaker is bound by decisions of previous Speakers. If that be so, it may be necessary for some method to be devised for ascertaining the views of the House upon the question whether it is really desirable that this decision of the late Mr. Speaker Fitzroy should continue to apply. I have no hesitation in saying that on the wording of at least two of the nationalisation statutes, the proper construction to be put upon them is that many of these questions should be admissible if it were not for that decision of the late Mr. Speaker Fitzroy which rules out of Order Questions of a kind Ministers have refused to answer. Under the Transport Act the Minister is able to "give to the Commission directions of a general character," and it is provided that:
In framing programmes … involving substantial outlay on capital account, the Board shall act on lines settled from time to time with the approval of the Minister.
It is also laid down:
The Commission shall furnish the Minister with such returns, accounts and other information with respect to their property and activities as he may from time to time require.
I do not express any opinion where my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) stands in this matter, but I differ from the Members of the Socialist Party who have spoken in that I believe that it would be a very great mistake if the Minister of Transport or the Minister of Fuel and Power accepted the position that he should be held accountable for every small day to day decision taken in the nationalised industries. Two evil results would necessarily follow from that. We on this side of the House have always said that one of the great dangers—we would say evils—of nationalisation is that no administrator ever dares to take a risk.
If every administrator, before making up his mind about what to do in day-to-day administration, had to consider how his particular actions might look if a Question were put down in the Howe of Commons about them, then I believe it would have a most deadening effect on all initiative and enterprise in these nationalised industries. The second result that would follow would be equally logical. If the Ministers were liable to be questioned about these matters in the House of Commons and held responsible for them, they would obviously require to


exercise control, and the effect of that would be a great centralisation of these various nationalised industries, which again would inevitably result in a vast, cumbrous and awkward bureaucracy.
Therefore, I support the suggestion which has been made by my right hon. Friend that the responsibility for refusing to answer Questions shall be regarded as a Parliamentary and administrative responsibility which should rest fairly and squarely upon the Ministers themselves. Their shoulders are broad enough, and, as long as they possess the confidence of the House, I am sure they will be sustained by the majority of the House when they refuse to answer vexatious and unreasonable Questions. I do say that for there to be an arbitrary rule, and that the Table should be required to disallow Questions merely upon the actual wording of the statute, is not likely to work satisfactorily in the long run. It is not possible, by the construction of the words, to draw a distinction between what is a matter of detail of day-to-day administration and what is a matter involving a principle. It is the Minister, who knows how the administration is working, who will in fact be in a far better position to perceive whether this is an important matter, which may perhaps be the beginning of some great industrial dispute which is likely to arise and which does involve some great matter of principle.
It was the intention that this Debate should be chiefly confined to this one matter of Parliamentary Questions, and I will therefore say only a few words on the much bigger and broader question of the general system of Parliamentary control over these new socialised industries. It will not be possible for Parliament fully and accurately to inform itself about the activities of these industries by means of Parliamentary Question and answer. One of the great dangers of socialised industries will be an unwillingness to move with the times and to recognise that mistakes have been made. I believe that, When reports are presented to Parliament annually by the boards, it will be necessary for a Select Committee of the House, analagous to the Public Accounts Committee to go into the matter, and I think it will require to be assisted by a permanent staff, rather in the same way that your Counsel, Mr. Speaker, assists the Committee of this House which examines

Statutory Instruments, and the way in which the auditor and Accountant-General assists the Public Accounts Committee.
I would express the hope that, during the next few months, the Government will keep an open mind on the steps required to deal with this entirely new departure. I believe that the discussion which we have had today is only dealing with one important, but still small, part of this subject, which is the effective control and supervision by the nation of those great industries and services which have now become public property.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. Diamond: I was very glad to hear the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) refer to two points. The first was the undesirability of asking Questions on day-to-day matters, and the second was the need for some further machinery beyond that which we have already for satisfying Parliament as to these most important Questions. I take the view that the excess of Questions which have been put to the Table and to Ministers on the nationalised industries arises from the fact that the Government have not been very helpful in providing adequate alternative opportunities and machinery for doing the very thing which I am sure all hon. Members on both sides of the House are anxious to do; that is, to satisfy themselves as to the efficiency of the nationalised industries. It is a matter upon which I am sure that hon. Members opposite are most anxious, and hon. Member on this side are even more anxious, because we take the view that nationalisation, apart from its many other and obvious merits, shall stand or fall, if necessary, on this question of efficiency, and I entirely support the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council in that respect.
It is, therefore, necessary that we should have the fullest opportunity of satisfying ourselves that these corporations are being efficiently run. Clearly, it is quite impossible that that can be done adequately in the form of Parliamentary Question and answer. It is unfair to the hon. Member, and it is even much more grossly unfair to the corporations and the officials whose activities are being questioned. Somewhat after the style of the Romans, who made it clear what answers to their Questions they required


by one of three little words placed at the beginning, hon. Members have a habit of making it quite clear what they require to be done about something or other by the way in which they word their Questions; and Questions are not always directed purely for obtaining statistical information. They are directed more frequently with a view to something being done or some grievance being put right, and it is obviously quite wrong and demoralising for those who have these great responsibilities that there should be attempts made to justify administrative actions or day-to-day actions in the short scope of a 30-second or one-minute answer to a Question.
Therefore, I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he will continue to be in this embarrassing position, and that the Chair, if I may say so, will continue to have this unbearable burden put upon it, until hon. Members—and far be it from me to deprive any hon. Members of their full rights in this democratic institution—until hon. Members have some alternative and can know for certain that they need not ask a Question on a particular day because they would get a fuller answer later on, if the matter is not so immediate and urgent.
I would suggest two things to the Government in order that this matter may be put right. The first is that many of the Questions addressed to the Government at the moment are Questions which would be put more appropriately to the consultative councils, if they have been established. My right hon. Friend might say that they are in process of establishment, and, so far as further nationalised industries are concerned, I hope he will endeavour to set up, at the same time as the industry is taken over, a consultative council which could start to function contemporaneously. The second thing which I suggest is that, in order to deal with this problem of questions, there should be machinery provided along the lines put forward by the hon. Member for The High Peak, whose suggestion I would like to endorse. We ask our Questions to satisfy ourselves that these organisations are being efficiently run. I suggest that we are not able to answer that question satisfactorily from the information available to us or from the machinery open to us. Members of Parliament have far too much to

do to be able to go into all these detailed questions satisfactorily.
Therefore, the answer is that some organisation should be set up, directed to satisfying the House—because, surely, we are responsible for the nation's assets which are transferred to these national industries—that these organisations are being efficiently run. Such an organisation would have to work under an official who should certainly not be an, official of any Department, but should, like the Comptroller and Auditor-General, be a servant of this House, responsible to this House, and dismissable only by this House, or, if necessary, by both Houses of Parliament. This gentleman who, for the sake of a title, we might call the "Efficiency Auditor-General," would have, with the assistance of a staff, the power to examine from time to time, in the same way as an auditor functions, the question of whether or not an industry was being efficiently carried on. This is quite a different question from that of whether the finance of an industry is being properly spent. The professional auditor appointed under the Act would no doubt do that. What we have to do is to satisfy ourselves that the money is being wisely spent, and that is quite beyond the scope of an ordinary professional auditor, or, indeed, of either of the two committees which exist at the moment.

Mr. Bowles: Does my hon. Friend think that a civil servant, such as the "Efficiency Auditor-General," could decide the wisdom of what was going on?

Mr. Diamond: If my hon. Friend will allow me to continue, he will find that I shall give him a satisfactory answer. The only body which can answer that question satisfactorily is this House. I am suggesting the provision of machinery in order that that necessary information shall be made available, and fully, on appropriate occasions. I was going on to suggest that the Efficiency Auditor-General should be responsible to a committee of this House, because there are too many hon. Members in it for the matter to be dealt with in debate, and we are too fully occupied. The committee could not, on constitutional grounds alone, be the Select Committee or the Accounts Committee, because they deal with money voted by Parliament, and, on the whole, nationalised industries will not, we hope,


have money voted to them by Parliament.
Because of the constitutional position, and also because of the fact that, if I may say so, hon. Members who form those committees may not be the most appropriate to consider whether or not an industry is being efficiently run, it is clear that a new Select Committee will be necessary. I have no doubt that there are hon. Members who are very well qualified to carry out that task, Members who are skilled in labour relations, in financial management, and who will have had experience of the industry before its nationalisation, and who, in the future, it is to be hoped, will graduate from the nationalised industries into this House and who will have experience of it directly in that way. They will be members of varied ability, experience and capacity, who will be able satisfactorily to receive the reports from the Efficiency Auditor-General and to comment on those reports. What is the most valuable thing of all, they will have brought before them as witnesses members of the boards of the industries concerned, who will, in this way, have an opportunity of satisfying this Select Committee that they have carried out their duties wisely and efficiently, so far as they are permitted so to do under the policy laid down by the Government.
There we have the exact problem as in the Select Committee on Estimates, which can only consider estimates within the limitations of government policy. Those reports would then be laid before the House, and the House would have the fullest opportunity in long debates of discussing and satisfying themselves as to two important things: first, that the Minister's policy, for which he is responsible to the House, was wisely conceived; and, secondly, that those charged with the carrying out of the administration of the nationalised industries within that policy have carried it out wisely and efficiently.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Will my hon. Friend explain in a little more detail how this efficiency expert, as he calls him, will be able to present to any section of the Members of this House a full report as to whether an industry is being efficiently run on the practical side, the technical side, the technological side, and so on? Would he not have to be a super

Coal Board, having more knowledge than the Coal Board has?

Mr. Diamond: I would like to answer that question in detail, but, for reasons which are known to you, Mr. Speaker, I do not think I had better attempt to do so. I will say shortly that it is now a well-established profession, and that there is no difficulty in finding the necessary number of people professionally qualified to carry out the work of the efficiency auditor. It is a profession which could be developed, and there would be no difficulty in providing the necessary manpower which would supply the E.A.G., as I call him, with adequate information which he can place before the Select Committee of this House. In that way, I hope, we should gain satisfactory information.
It seems to me that if I—I am not suggesting for one moment this is the case, because it is a non-party affair—were desirous of demoralising the management of a nationalised industry with a view to proving that it could not possibly be efficiently run, I should make it my duty to put down as many Questions as the Clerks at the Table would allow, finicky, irritating questions on day-to-day management, until I was sure that no self-respecting, worthwhile director, or member of a board, would dream of taking on the job of being a member of a board of a nationalised industry.

5.48 P.m.

Sir John Anderson: I do not propose to follow either the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Diamond) or my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) on the broader issue of the best method of making effective the ultimate responsibility of Parliament for these socialised services. I think I can most usefully occupy such time as is available to me by confining myself, for the moment, to the narrower question of the admissibility of questions, and the responsibility of Ministers in regard to answering or not answering Questions relating to those socialised services.
I am very glad to have the opportunity of taking part in this Debate, because I recognise, as do other hon. Members, that the issue raised is an important constitutional one. As it happens, it is also a matter to which I have had to give a good deal of thought at different times in the past. As my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain


Crookshank) said in his opening speech, we are face to face with a situation which is, in some respects—I think only in some respects—novel. I entirely agree with him, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who replies to this Debate will make it clear that he also agrees, that we ought to beware of laying down a too rigid set of rules for our guidance at the outset. Let us see how we get along.
I say that with greater assurance because last Thursday Mr. Speaker himself, at the close of Questions, made it perfectly clear that, so far as admissibility is concerned, that is a matter, not of Standing Orders or of formalised Rules, but of the custom of this House. One naturally looks to Erskine May for guidance in a matter of this kind and, in regard to the admissibility of Questions, the relevant passage in Erskine May runs as follows:
Questions addressed to Ministers should relate to the public affairs with which they are officially connected, to proceedings pending in Parliament, or to matters of administration for which they are responsible.
I suggest that when we talk of the responsibility of Ministers as being our guide in this matter, we ought to have regard to both limbs of that quotation. It is clear, and it has been clearly recognised by previous speakers, that there are two quite distinct issues: what Questions are admissible, and how far can the Minister legitimately go in declining to answer Questions which appear on the Paper. Those two questions, I suggest, may be connected—although they are in essence distinct—by the application of what is called the, rule against repetition which, as quoted in Erskine May, runs:
Repeating in substance questions already answered or to which an answer has been refused.
I will return in a moment to that point, but I want first to deal with the interpretation of responsibility in this connection. My submission is that one must deduce from the scope of the Minister's functions, rather than from any strict interpretation of specific statutory provisions governing the Minister's powers, what is really the extent of his responsibility. I venture to submit, with great respect, that if an attempt were made to limit the responsibility of the Minister by reference to the precise words in which his responsibility may be defined in the particular statute in question, we should

not be adhering to the past practice of this House.
The Department of State with which I am most familiar is the Home Office, and it is a matter of undoubted fact that from time to time the Home Secretary has been asked, and has answered, Questions on matters in regard to which he has no specific responsibility and, indeed, no power. I can readily recall examples. When, for instance, on the first day of the opening of the football field at Twickenham an unfortunate incident occurred, the barriers were rushed and broken down, and many people were hurt, Questions were put immediately and, I submit, very properly to the Home Secretary. He answered those Questions, and he took certain action by way of appointing a committee of inquiry. Similarly, when there were certain disastrous and unexpected floods in London in the twenties, the Home Secretary was called upon to satisfy the House that all proper measures were being taken to safeguard the interests of the public. The other day, the Colonial Secretary was questioned on the tribal murders in the Gold Coast. It appeared, after certain initial confusion had been cleared away, that in that matter he had no responsibility and no power, but I think the House would have taken it very ill if Questions on that matter had been prevented from appearing on the Paper.
Now it may be said that those are exceptional cases, that the Home Secretary and the Colonial Secretary are the custodians of the residual prerogative powers of the Crown, and that what applies to them might not apply to Ministers whose functions are defined by statute. I would like to address myself to that and to give, first, an illustration from the Home Office in a matter in which the Home Secretary's position is defined by statute. In that connection I would point out a rather interesting difference between the position of die Home Secretary in relation to the Prison Commissioners, whose powers are set out in detail in a series of statutes, and the position of the Home Secretary in relation to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. The governing statutes dealing with the powers of the Prison Commissioners not only set out those powers in detail, but provide at almost every point that, in the exercise of those powers, the


approval of the Home Secretary must be assured. On the other hand, in the case of the Commissioner of Police, the statute gives certain specific powers to the Home Secretary to recommend the appointment of gentlemen as Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners, to extend the scope of the responsibilities of the police from time to time but, in regard to the control of the administration of the Police Force, the statute is entirely silent.
Nevertheless, as hon. Members will recollect, cases have arisen from time to time upon which the Home Secretary has been questioned regarding the conduct of the Metropolitan Police. Hon. Members may remember the notorious Savage case, which excited a great deal of interest in this House. I can assure the House that the Home Secretary had no power and no specific responsibility. The Commissioner of Police acted at the instance of the Director of Public Prosecutions and carried out what must be regarded as being a duty of the head officer of the Metropolitan Police, but the Home Secretary was questioned and had to answer, and I am perfectly certain that the House would have taken it amiss if the Home Secretary had endeavoured to make out that, because he had no specific responsibility, the Questions were such as he ought not to be called upon to answer.
If I am not wearying the House, and because I think these illustrations are of use, I will refer to another interesting case. In 1911 a statute of a novel character became law, setting up what might be regarded fairly as a socialised service, the National Insurance service. From beginning to end of that long statute there is no reference to the control of a Minister. There are references to the power of the Treasury to appoint Insurance Commissioners, and the Treasury are given the ordinary power to approve establishments. Beyond that, however, and beyond the provision towards the end providing that a body be set up to be called the National Health Insurance Joint Committee, to have as its chairman someone who would not on that account be precluded from sitting in the House, there is no provision in that statute defining the power or responsibility of Ministers in relation to the important public functions entrusted to the Insurance Commissioners. Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that from the moment

that Act became operative, Ministers of the Crown were bombarded with Questions unprecedented in volume and scope.
How did that arise? According to my belief it arose from the fact that the Treasury were given the power to appoint the Insurance Commissioners and it was held that, having the power to appoint the Insurance Commissioners and, presumably, the power to remove them, they thereby became responsible for the whole range of functions of those four bodies. I am not concerned to argue whether that was the correct view or not, but the fact stands out, and it is significant in this connection because, in relation to the socialised services, Ministers are given the same power to appoint the members of the board, in the case of the Transport Commission. This is the exact wording:
Every member of the Commission shall hold and vacate his office in accordance with the terms of his appointment and shall, on ceasing to be a member, be eligible for reappointment.
Quite apart from the general power to give directions, and quite apart from the power of the Minister to call for information, the Minister in relation to the British Transport Commission, has exactly the same power to appoint the responsible operating authorities as the Treasury had under the Act to appoint the Insurance Commissioners.

Mr. S. Silverman: It is not necessary for the right hon. Gentleman's argument to show that the Minister thereby becomes responsible. It is enough if he shows that the Minister is officially connected with it.

Sir J. Anderson: I merely wanted to drive the point home by developing the argument by specific reference to cases which I think are analogous, and which ought to be taken into account when we try to make up our minds as to what the position exactly is on this point, especially under these recent Acts. I am bound to say that I have observed in the last two years that, in regard to the port and harbour authorities of the country, Questions have from time to time been put to the Minister of Transport, and have been answered by him—I am making no criticism of that at all—on matters which are at any rate outside his statutory responsibility. If hon. Members are interested, they might look at HANSARD for 1st April, 1946, where they will see that the Minister of Transport


answered certain Questions concerning the internal arrangements of the Port of London Authority and, in giving an answer, he used the formula which was referred to by one Member earlier in the Debate, that he was giving the information by courtesy of the Port of London Authority.
That seems to me to negative any view that Questions which are not strictly within the defined statutory responsibilities of the Minister must, of necessity, be ruled out of Order and refused at the Table. If, in regard to the port and harbour authorities, where the Minister even now has nothing like the responsibilities that he has in relation to the fully socialised services, Questions could be put on the Paper and answered, it would be very odd if that were not also the position in regard to the services which have been fully socialised. Obviously, all the activities of these boards of socialised industries come within the purview of the Minister, although his specific administrative responsibilities may be limited. I suggest that detailed management in the case of these socialised services is just as much, or as little, the responsibility of the Minister, and not of the board, as in the case of the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of Police.
Moreover, I think that the case for holding that the Minister's responsibilities go very far indeed is, as hon. Members have pointed out, greatly strengthened by the fact that he is specifically empowered to call for information on a wide range of matters. I would submit, therefore, that all Questions relating to the activities of these boards of socialised industries are prima facie admissible, subject to the ordinary Rules and the ordinary established customs of the House, and subject, in particular, to the Rule, to which I have already referred, against repetition, however that Rule may be interpreted. I would, therefore, argue that a Question about the 9.15 train from Lincoln, or some train from Nuneaton, is, in the first instance, admissible. Where I confess I have doubts is whether, when the Minister has said he will not answer that Question, or that sort of Question, any other Question of the same kind, relating to a different station and a different train, for example, should not be properly refused at the Table.

Mr. H. Morrison: A very subtle question.

Sir J. Anderson: I am inclined to think that it should be refused at the Table, so long as the Minister has the confidence of the House in refusing, as a matter of practice, to answer that Question. It would be silly, if not mischievous, to go on trying again and again. I would say—and here I take the point of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank)—that if the night mail from Edinburgh is an hour late day after day, weekend after weekend, I think the Question could very properly be put, not with the vain hope that the Minister would lift his finger and intervene to bring about immediately a much better state of affairs, but in order to get information and in order to be able to form a true judgment as to the efficiency of the service. I think that there we get a matter of administration, which I agree has to be distinct from management. Administration and policy go very closely together; I submit that management is a different matter.
Before I pass from this particular question of admissibility, I would like to add this consideration. It is conceded on all sides that there must be Debates from time to time when the reports and accounts of those socialised industries come up for consideration in the House. If such Debates are to be effective, it seems to me that it would be reasonable to allow very special latitude prior to the Debate for Questions, even Questions of detail, concerning the day-to-day administration, designed to supply Members with the information which they require for the purpose of the forthcoming Debate. That, in itself, would be an argument against having too rigid a Rule.
Having dealt with the question of admissibility, I now come to what I think, from the point of view of Ministers, is the much more important consideration—the extent to which they should be required to answer Questions. I think that, in regard to this, we ought to concede to Ministers a very wide discretion, especially in the early days, having regard to the nature of the functions which the boards of socialised industries have been set up to discharge. I think, as my right hon. and gallant Friend indicated, that if a Minister can satisfy the House that he is justified in declining to answer


a Question of any particular type, he should be allowed to go on refusing to answer such Questions. I do not altogether agree with the view that has been expressed as to the demoralising effect of Questions on people engaged in administration. I have sometimes felt sorry for my Minister; but I have never felt any embarrassment myself.

Mr. H. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman ought to have done so sometimes.

Sir J. Anderson: I think the average civil servant or officer of one of these public corporations will be perfectly content to go along as long as he has the confidence of the Minister who, if challenged in this House, will have to deal with the matters raised. I speak with some diffidence in the presence of the Home Secretary and of an ex-Home Secretary, but I remember frequent occasions on which the Home Secretary, when I was at the Home Office as an official, has replied that the matter raised was one in regard to which he was not prepared to interfere with the discretion of the Prison Commissioners, or whoever is might be.
I want to say one word in that connection on the position of the Civil Service. Someone has suggested that, in regard to the Civil Service in general, the Minister had to take responsibility for every detail and that the position was entirely different from that of the boards of socialised services. There are civil servants, and civil servants. Some civil servants are engaged in carrying out, anonymously, in the name of the Minister, duties and responsibilities laid upon the Minister. There are also civil servants who have responsibilities put upon them by statute, which they have to discharge personally. For example, factory inspectors were originally magistrates, and they have certain powers and responsibilities which they discharge on their own personal responsibility. They may be amenable to the courts, but on matters of that kind the Home Secretary has not the right to interfere.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): They have passed to the control of the House, and are under the Ministry of Labour.

Sir J. Anderson: I beg pardon, that is quite right, and I was Home Secretary when that happened. I ought to have

said that the Minister has not the right to interfere. Our view in regard to the admissibility of Questions should be that the Clerks at the Table should interpret the customs of the House liberally, giving the benefit of the doubt, where there is a doubt, to the questioner. I am sure we would all agree that nothing should be done to give colour to any suggestion—which in any case I am sure would be quite unfounded—of a compact or understanding between the Table and Ministers that matters of interest to the House should be kept from the House. I believe that if the principles I have endeavoured to indicate in regard to the admissibility of Questions and the right of Ministers to refuse as responsible Ministers to answer Questions of a particular kind, or kinds, the good sense of the House will in the end be effective in preventing abuse. Parliamentary Questions I have always been taught, are one of the great pillars of the whole system of Parliamentary control. I think we can be confident that hon. Members seeking to abuse their opportunities will be brought to Order by the clearly expressed view of the House.
If I may summarise the points I have tried to make, I think, first, that the responsibility of Ministers in these matters must be interpreted broadly, and not narrowly by reference to specific provisions of a Statute. I say, let us avoid any cause for suspicion of the existence of some compact or arrangement between the Table and Ministers for keeping something away from the House. In case of doubt, let the questioner have the benefit of the doubt, let the responsibility for answering or not answering be clearly laid on Ministers, and in that connection let the application of the Rule against repetition, if necessary, be reviewed. Finally, let us all recognise that we are in the presence of a novel situation, and avoid trying at this stage to lay down a set of too rigid Rules. In this way, the good sense of the House will speedily bring about a position in which Members will have all reasonable latitude, without involving a degree of interference prejudicial to the efficiency and successful working of the new corporations.

6.14 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The House has had an interesting and, I think, good,


useful, and good-tempered Debate which has been well begun and well concluded, with a lot of interesting speeches in the middle. It is always a pleasure in these matters to cross swords with the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) and of advantage to listen to, if not to cross swords with—because he does not like crossing swords, not being a strong party man—and to attempt to gain wisdom from the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson).
Having listened to him, I now proceed to give the House the first lesson. This is the first lesson, and I begin with quotes:
The extent of Ministerial control should be defined as clearly as possible in the instrument constituting the authority. In regard to matters falling within the Minister's powers of control, he would be liable to be questioned in Parliament in the usual way. On the other hand, in regard to all matters declared to be within the discretion of the authority, the Minister would be entitled and, indeed, bound, to disclaim responsibility.
That is the end of the first lesson.

Sir J. Anderson: Sir J. Anderson rose——

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman knows he is guilty.

Sir J. Anderson: Yes, and with that in mind I referred to the fact that there are officials and authorities subordinate to Ministers whose powers are defined in terms that exclude Ministerial interference. That was what I had in mind in the quotation which the right hon. Gentleman has just made. I do not want this interruption to be another speech—but if I may refer, by way of illustration, to what was said by the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) about the Public Assistance Act—there the Ministers concerned made it perfectly clear that the responsibility was going to rest on the Board, to the exclusion of the responsibility of Ministers. That was accepted, and, moreover, the functions in question were in the nature of judicial functions, which have to be exercised in a judicial spirit in regard to which it would not only be wrong, but an outrage, for the Minister to interfere.

Mr. Morrison: With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, this passage I have quoted from the Romanes Lecture which

he gave on 14th May, 1946, was dealing with public corporations.

Sir J. Anderson: Yes, certainly.

Mr. Morrison: I remember the lecture very well.

Sir J. Anderson: It was before the Statute was passed.

Mr. Morrison: But the right hon. Gentleman was dealing with public corporations and very rightly and intelligently facing the problem which was about to emerge, and that was the doctrine. It could be no better or more acceptable from the point of view of the Lord President of the Council. Therefore, I am bound to say that, the more I listened to the right hon. Gentleman, the more I thought he went off his accustomed rails because that was what he said in relation to public corporations, and not in relation to factory inspectors. They are on the Minister of Labour's Vote, but this is the pure milk of the doctrine according to the right hon. Gentleman in his better days at the Home Office, before he got mixed up with this set of politicians on the Opposition Front Bench. Here I am much more nervous about crossing swords with him, because he had a distinguished career at the Home Office, as Permanent Secretary and lower down, and as Home Secretary. But I am surprised that he advances the argument that the Home Office are not bound to answer for the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis.

Sir J. Anderson: I said he was bound.

Mr. Morrison: I thought the idea was that the Home Secretary ought not to have to answer for that.

Sir J. Anderson: On the contrary.

Mr. Morrison: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; then, we are all right about that. I thought he was arguing that the Home Secretary was not bound so to answer. It was in connection with these categories of officials that the Minister is not bound to answer, because the official has to act on his own responsibility. That is what I thought.

Sir J. Anderson: I am sure it is ray fault. The point I was concerned to make was that in endeavouring to deduce the responsibilities of Ministers from the terms of Statutes, we might be inclined to argue that, because in the Statute


defining the functions of the Prison Commissioners we see they are subject to the approval of the Home Secretary, whereas in the Statute setting up the office of Commissioner of Police we find nothing of the kind, therefore the Home Secretary was not responsible for the Commissioner of Police. I said we might be inclined to argue that. I went on to say, by reference to the Savage case, that that was not so, and that the Home Secretary could be required to answer, and did answer. That was the point.

Mr. Morrison: I am obliged. We shall be able to compare what we have both said in the OFFICAL REPORT tomorrow. In the meantime I, of course, accept the observation of the right hon. Gentleman. It is the case that the Home Secretary is the police authority for the metropolis, and, poor man, even if he does not know in the least what the police are doing, he must answer for them, and either defend them—which he would wish to do if he could—or condemn them if he thought they were wrong. But he is responsible for them in Parliament; there is no doubt about that.

Sir J. Anderson: I agree.

Mr. Morrison: The same is the case in relation to the Prison Commissioners.

Sir J. Anderson: I agree.

Mr. Morrison: But outside London, where there are standing joint committees, and watch committees in boroughs, the position is different. I do not know how the present House of Commons would have accepted the Ruling of Mr. Speaker—not you, Sir, but one of your predecessors—given on 16th May, 1917. It is rather interesting to note that there was a point of Order—anyway, it was called a point of Order, as many others are now—which reads as follows:
MR. BILLING: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. On Monday last I handed the following question to the Table: 'To ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the recent riot at Gillingham, when the premises of the International Stores, with which the name of the Food Controller is so intimately bound up, were raided and destroyed; whether any action has been taken against the rioters, and whether the Government has any information as to the reasons for this riot?' The question has been refused at the Table. Perhaps you will tell me why?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should ask the Watch Committee of the district. The great boast of England is its system of local self-government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th May, 1917; Vol. XCIII, C. 1613.]
Nevertheless, the Home Secretary, presumably—indeed, almost certainly—gave a 50 per cent. grant of money to the watch committee; but the issue was ruled out of Order by Mr. Speaker at that time on the ground that the competent authority was the watch committee locally.

Sir J. Anderson: Which is an elected body.

Mr. Morrison: Yes.

Sir J. Anderson: That is the point.

Mr. Morrison: Well, is it?

Sir J. Anderson: Yes.

Mr. Morrison: Oh, come! The standing joint committee is 50 per cent. representation of the county council and 50 per cent. justices; but the watch committee is merely a committee of the county borough or non-county borough, as the case may be. The elected council have no responsibility and no power over the watch committee. Now, this is good Home Office doctrine; and, believe me, I am as sound an exponent of good Home Office doctrine as the right hon. Gentleman any day of the week; my right hon. Friend is still more up to date; we are all very good. If it be the case that an hon. Member could not succeed on a point of Order against the Gillingham watch committee, when there was a watch committee with a 50 per cent. grant from national funds, one really ought not to be too much shocked that there is a limit on Questions about public corporations. Nor need we be shocked if Ministers are a little bit—well, "sticky" is not the right word, because there is a very polite body of Ministers on this Front Bench: perhaps I could say a little bit restrained, as to what Questions they answer. At any rate, they are very courteous, very restrained in the way they put it, and very polite about it.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: Oh, dear!

Mr. Morrison: Yes, the right hon. Gentleman knows what is coming. In the war there was a Minister of Informa-


tion, and, as I said once before, how he got away with it I do not know. I thought in wartime—I am still inclined to think so, subject to somebody proving me wrong—that the Minister of Information was accountable for the B.B.C., in the sense that his wartime power enable him to effect over the B.B.C. any control that he wished; he was not bound to act if he did not wish to do so. I think that is a very fair statement of the wartime position—and rightly so, because the B.B.C. was so intimately related to security in many ways. Therefore, if the Minister of Information, on the doctrine that we have promulgated, had power to require the B.B.C. to do this, that and the other—or not, as the case may be—then I should have thought he was fair game for Parliamentary Questions in the war. The right hon. Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken) had very short shrift with Parliamentary Questions about this matter. Here is one of his answers in the House, on 4th February, 1942, when in the course of answering a supplementary question he said:
I think that my hon. Friend must not have heard me when I said that no change was involved in the relationship of the B.B.C. to the Ministry of Information. It is not my business to delve into the domestic affairs of the Governors of the B.B.C."—

Mr. Bracken: Hear, hear.

Mr. Morrison: Right!
They are supposed to be an independent body. Why should I try to elicit from them what arrangements they are making about their staff.
Who said "Sir Ben Smith"!

Mr. Bracken: Who sacked him?

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman laid down the doctrine that the staff was the B.B.C. staff, and he was not even going to argue about it, let alone tell the House of Commons.

Captain Crookshank: You could do the same.

Mr. Morrison: Later he said that the House could not have it every way. That is what I am saying to the House today, if the House will forgive me—you see, I am much more apologetic than the right hon. Gentleman——
The House cannot have it every way. Either they want the Governors to have a certain amount of independence, or they want

to make the B.B.C. an appendage of the Ministry of Information, which would be a very bad thing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th February, 5942; Vol. 377, c. 1165–6.]
It is precisely the same issue today.

Mr. Bracken: The right hon. Gentleman is too modest. Apparently, he does not remember that when the former right hon. Member for Epping became Prime Minister and invited the Lord President to be an ornament of his Government——

Mr. Morrison: A very useful ornament, you know.

Mr. Bracken: —it was decided by the Prime Minister—perhaps partly on my advice—with the full concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the B.B.C. was too important an instrument of publicity to be subjected to any Minister under the Crown. Therefore, the B.B.C. Governors were restored to their full authority by the Prime Minister of the day, acting with the concurrence of the then Home Secretary. It is quite wrong to say, as the Lord President does, that after the B.B.C. Governors were restored to their full authority, I could interfere with them. They were given absolute power, and I left them alone, as I had to—and rightly so—for the rest of the war.

Mr. S. Silverman: Before my right hon. Friend continues, I would point out that I find it difficult to follow the inference he is asking the House to draw. I gather that all these answers which my right hon. Friend is reading out were answers given to Questions printed upon the Order Paper and accepted at the Table?

Mr. Morrison: Maybe.

Mr. Silverman: Well, that is the whole point.

Mr. Morrison: I do not quite understand my hon. Friend. At the moment I have a row, or at least an argument, with the Conservative Front Bench. Why my Left Wing Friend, the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) should come to the rescue of the Conservative Front Bench I do not know. But it is a free country, and he is perfectly entitled to do so.

Mr. Silverman: I am not interested in them. I am interested only in the point at issue.

Sir J. Anderson: If the right hon. Gentleman wants to have an argument with me, perhaps we might be clear on what we are arguing about. The first part of my speech was concerned entirely with the question of admissibility. The right hon. Gentleman is arguing what I never disputed, namely, the right of the Minister to refuse to answer Questions. All of his arguments are relevant to the second matter, and not to the first.

Mr. Morrison: Do not let us all get "hotted-up" about this.

Mr. S. Silverman: Who is "hotting-up"?

Mr. Morrison: Admissibility is very relevant to the Debate. Is the right hon. Gentleman arguing that any Question a Member wants to put down, should be accepted by the Table?

Sir J. Anderson: Sir J. Anderson indicated dissent.

Mr. Morrison: I gather that he is not.

Sir J. Anderson: I thought that I made my position quite clear.

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman is not arguing that. Then the Table and Mr. Speaker must have rules about the admissibility of Questions, and these Rules are perfectly clear in Erskine May. In a former discussion, I said that there were about 17 Rules covering admissibility, but I now find that I was wrong; there are nearly 40. One of the most important is the Rule stated in the lecture I have quoted as the first lesson, namely, has the Minister responsibility; has he done anything, and can he do anything about it? If the answer to these questions is "No," then a Question is not admissible. I have always understood that to be the position from the beginning. The answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne, who came to the rescue of the rather forlorn right hon. Gentleman opposite, which is a very noble and generous gesture on his part, is that these Questions were quite properly on the Order Paper because the right hon. Gentleman had responsibility. Believe me, the mere edict of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), that hereafter the B.B.C. were to be thoroughly independent, does not settle the Rules of Procedure governing Questions.

Mr. Bracken: It was not a mere edict of the Prime Minister at that time. The existence of the B.B.C. Governors, exercising all the rights under their Charter, made it difficult for anyone to put down a Question in this House. While the B.B.C. Governors were in existence, it was difficult to put down Questions, but at the beginning of the war Mr. Chamberlain asked the B.B.C. Governors to retire, which they did, and the Charter was in suspense. When the Charter was restored, not just on the edict of the then Prime Minister—the House was notified most formally that it had been restored—the Minister of Information no longer had power to direct the B.B.C. according to any desires he might have.

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right and perfectly fair. I was associated with the change. I am not to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman at all. Why should I? He is right up my street, and I am using him as a witness on my behalf. It is the case that the Governors did not exist at the beginning of the war. They were put out of office for some time, but later on, under the Premiership of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford, they were put back. That did not alter the position that there was Ministerial power to order them about as the Minister of information wished.

Mr. Bracken: No.

Mr. Morrison: I thought that that was so, and it ought to be so. Suppose that the B.B.C. in the war——

Mr. Bracken: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman again, but he keeps making this statement. During the war, when I should have liked the B.B.C. to have taken a different line, I had to defer to the better judgment of the Governors, recognising that they had been restored.

Mr. Morrison: It is utterly intolerable, it a great war when the nation was fighting for its life, that the B.B.C. should have been able to do what it liked, and should have been able to do bad things.

Mr. Bracken: They were patriotic citizens.

Mr. Morrison: It is intolerable that that should be so, when the nation was in a state of war and was fighting for its life.


It had to be the case that the B.B.C. were subject to the orders of the Minister of Information, if he cared to exercise those orders, in the same way as we had Regulation 18B.

Mr. Bracken: We had a free Press and B.B.C.

Mr. Morrison: Whether the right hon. Gentleman cared to interfere or not was a matter for him. He was urged time after time to answer this, that and the other Question about the B.B.C., but he flatly refused, in regard to a whole series of matters, on the grounds that he was not going to interfere with the B.B.C., even if he had the desire to do so.

Mr. Bracken: I could not do that because I had not the power.

Mr. Morrison: The Conservative Party must make up their mind. Either they want the public corporations to be the instruments of Ministers and State Departments, or they wish them to have a proper degree of independence. I will give another case, because this switch-round on the part of the Conservative Party is really remarkable. When the London Passenger Transport Bill was brought in at the time when I was Minister of Transport in 1931, I found that Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister said this:
Throughout this Bill you find the Minister mentioned in every page, and the control of the Minister goes all through this Measure."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1931; Vol. 250, c. 80.]
What happened? When the Government went out in 1931 and the Coalition Government came in, it was decided to take out even the powers of the Minister to appoint the board, and the appointing of trustees was substituted. The argument was that Socialism should be taken out of the Measure. I am not sure that that did so, but it was as good a reason as any for amending the Bill, and I was not unhappy about it. They took it out on the basis of the specific and deliberate doctrine that this body should not be accountable to Parliament, and that the Minister should have the minimum power over it. I cannot make out what has happened meantime. During the passage of these Measures through Parliament, it was argued that the Ministers had too much power. In case after case it was argued by the Opposition that the Ministers had too much power, and that it was the Minister here, there and every-

where. The Ministers said two things. They said that they must have more powers than the Ministers had over the public corporations before the war, and, secondly, that they had no intention of subjecting the boards to day-to-day interference, or to meticulous intervention by political authority. That being so, I cannot understand why at this late hour the Opposition should switch round completely and want Ministers to exercise powers they have not got, and are demanding that Parliament should have the authority to intervene to a much greater extent than before. I cannot follow it. It seems to be illogical and unreasonable in the circumstances of the case.
I agree with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough that we are on new territory, and that none of us had better be final, conclusive, or dogmatic about the matter. This is a question about which we have to learn as we go along. Having cleared the ground on the general principle, I agree that we have to learn a lot in this matter. There are many other things besides Parliamentary Questions which are even more important in the conduct and management of those socialised industries. There are questions of even wider accountability and responsibility. There are questions, for instance, of the pace which workers, staff and technicians occupy in the undertaking, questions of what are called, in the classic T.U.C. phrase, "consultation," but which we are now beginning to call "industrial democracy." This question of economic and industrial democracy is, in my judgment, no less important than the issue of answering Parliamentary Questions. Indeed, I would say that it is even more important than the question of putting Parliamentary Questions on the Order Paper. We are at the beginning of all this, and we have much to learn.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blacklev (Mr. Diamond) referred to the question of an efficiency audit. I am a little doubtful about a Parliamentary committee conducting such an audit. As Members of Parliament, we have every right to boast about our virtues, and to assert our abilities, but we had better remember our limitations as well, and, that being so, I am not quite sure that a committee of the House of Commons would be the right body to conduct an efficiency audit.


The matter, however, is well worth study in some form or another, because I am quite sure that the corporations themselves will feel increasingly the need for a check-up, for encouragement, and for an examination of their activities with a view to getting the greatest possible efficiency on their part.

Sir Arthur Salter: Would the right hon. Gentleman add to that the most important of all problems—that of collective bargaining in a public monopoly?

Mr. Morrison: I did not want to go over the whole field of conduct of public corporations, but I did want to get to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles). In a speech which, I thought, went rather far, my hon. Friend made an exception about wages, and he was quite right; I am sure that trade unions would not welcome questions of wages being debated across the Floor of the House, or Questions placed on the Order Paper about them, as it would weaken their collective bargaining and authority. That is true of some other people, as well.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough also argued that this was not necessarily a party question, that we were entering a new field, that this was a new issue. I agree with him on the question of procedure, but, of course, questions of public ownership inevitably raise political and sharply controversial issues. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that Parliament deliberately decided to run these corporations on somewhat different lines, and not on the lines of the Post Office. He is right. But if Parliament did that, their situation must be different from that of the Post Office. I should have thought that it was not unnatural to expect that the eligibility of Parliamentary Questions was bound to be in doubt when we had fashioned an entirely new instrument. As for providing information, I have seen some examples of the very detailed information which the Ministry of Fuel and Power have put out, and which, I should have thought, almost certainly contained greater detail than the information which was put out by the old Mines Department of the Board of Trade. Some of the information now put out is very extensive. If Members wish to ask for infor-

mation which they have reason to believe the Ministry of Fuel and Power has, and which comes within this field, I should have thought that it would be competent for Questions to be put to try to elicit that information.
The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) wanted to know whether Members of Parliament could write to a nationalised board? They can. I understand from all the boards that they will inquire into, and reply to, letters which may be sent to them by Members of Parliament. I am sure that those letters will be received with every courtesy, as we should wish them to be. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) asked whether Members' letters to boards would be privileged. I am not a legal authority, but I should have thought not. Matters arising here are privileged, but I should not have thought that anything outside was privileged, except it was in a court of justice.

Mr. Driberg: Letters to Ministers are privileged.

Mr. Morrison: Are they?

Mr. S. Silverman: The letters would be privileged, but they would have a qualified privilege, whereas in this House the privilege is absolute.

Mr. Morrison: It could be argued in court that the letters were written in good faith, and that it was a public duty. I think I am right in saying, at least, that the absolute privilege obtaining in this House would not apply to such letters. I have a recollection that the line of argument that we have advanced on this point is well in line with the Liberal "Yellow Book" of 1928 or 1929. If the hon. Member for North Cumberland will look it up, he will find some good stuff in that book. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon wanted to know whether letters to a board would not be a cause of interference? I do not think so. I do not think that letters from Members of Parliament and from the public need cause meticulous interference. The boards will inquire into them, and give their answers. Hospitals, which are shortly coming under the administration of the Ministry of Health, are in an entirely different category from large and complex industrial undertakings. Hospitals have been administrative institutions for a long time, so there is nothing strange about that.
I have already dealt with the point about workers. I think it is better for their conditions to be argued and negotiated by trade union organisations. As for consumers, we have made most careful provisions in our Statutes for their protection in the best possible way. I was asked how soon these consumers' councils would be set up. Some are working very well, and others which are not yet set up will be set up at an early date. If, over and above trade union negotiations, collective bargaining, consumers' councils and consultative committees, this House is to be a court of appeal, I think we are in danger of weakening the authority of those bodies, which would be wrong. I should have thought—although this is a matter for Mr. Speaker, and not for me—that questions relating to the operation of the Colonial Development Corporation and the Overseas Food Corporation could be put on the same lines as those to other Ministers in relation to the British commercial corporations with which we are dealing. If it was thought that the local native population was not being properly treated, I should have thought that Questions could be put to the Secretary of State for the Colonies to ask him to exercise his authority to protect that population.
May I put this to the House as briefly and as shortly as I can? Questions can be put to Ministers over a considerable field in this matter of the public corporations. They can clearly be put to them where the Minister has done something. That is quite clear. They can clearly be put to the Minister where he had the power to do something and has not used it. If, for example, it is held that the Minister should give a general direction to a public corporation, that they should or should not do something as a general principle, I should have thought that it would, in all probability, be in Order to put down a Question to ask the Minister either to issue such a general direction, or to refrain from doing so, as the case may be. That is a pretty wide field. The Minister, of course, appoints Members of the Boards. Questions about that are clearly admissible.
There are also various matters on which the Minister has specific powers. He has to approve capital expenditure programmes; he has to set up the consumers' councils, and he can refer matters to the

consumers' councils. He gets reports from the consumers' councils. He approves the programme for research, and, if hon. Members will look at the various Statutes, they will find that the Minister has a wide sphere of powers which he can exercise, or which he is required to exercise, or which he can direct the Board, when doing certain matters, to apply for authority to the Minister. They will all of them fall within the limit of Parliamentary accountability, and Questions to the Minister would be admissible. There are also the Parliamentary Debates. We had one last week on Civil Aviation which went pretty wide and covered a fair amount of detail. I do not think that a single point of Order was raised during the whole proceedings. I think it is right that there should be rules about Parliamentary Questions somewhat more strict than those about the limitation of Debates on the work of the public corporations. These can take place from time to time, and therefore Parliament has not got a bad run.
I have been asked, "What about the rest?" I will speak about the rest very frankly and flatly. My view is this: If we are to have a socialised industry, which one side of the House says is right and the other side says is wrong, then we have to decide how the industry is to be managed. It is possible to argue that all these industries should be managed by State Departments—that is to say, Civil Service management, with the authority of the Ministers running all the way through. I could make out a case for that for electricity or gas; just as there is also a case to be made out against running those two industries in this way. But the House has taken the view, and I think most people have taken the view, and the country has taken the view, that, when we come to a highly commercial enterprise, which is very tricky—one in which you have to think out a lot of day-to-day problems, to think quickly and chance your arm, like transport and mining and other industries with which we have been dealing, or with which we may deal—then we have to get a more subtle instrument, more adaptable, more capable of quick movement and 'less liable to be bound down by tradition and rules. Every experienced Member of this House knows that one of the greatest criticisms of State Departments, often very unfairly made, is that they are afraid


to take risks and are slower in moving than they ought to be. There is some truth in that, but it is not always a fair point of attack or of criticism. There is some truth in it for the reason that a State Department is accountable directly for everything it does to the House of Commons and may be apprehensive of making a mistake, and of Questions being asked in Parliament.
While it is right that a Minister directly administering a State Department should be accountable for everything that happens in that Department, hon. Members might, now and then, I suggest, be a little merciful about the details of the Questions they put down; but the Minister must be held accountable. I am certain that if we run these public corporations—highly commercial, highly industrial, highly economic—on the basis of meticulous accountability to political channels, we are going to ruin the commercial enterprise and the adventurous spirit of these public corporations in their work.

Mr. Bowles: Mr. Bowles rose——

Mr. Morrison: No, I cannot give way. I have to finish at seven o'clock. That is the inevitable result, when we interfere in everything a public corporation is doing—hon. Members may say they would not do it, but we cannot be sure. The essence of the argument is that they should have the right to put Questions on any aspect of the work of the public corporations and that the Minister should have the right of refusing to reply, which would be a very unpleasant situation if it happened very often. This raises the question of the right to put Questions out-side the Rules of Order. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, with great respect it is so. What is being asked for is that the Minister shall answer on matters over which he has no control. That is a new rule of Parliament, and a new point of Parliamentary procedure. Then it is further argued that he need not answer the Questions. I wonder how long a Minister would last, meeting the House day after day, and saying, "I have nothing to

say"? There would be a row, and hon. Members know it.
The other point is this: We have to get to serve on these bodies and as members of the Boards the best men we possibly can—[Laughter.] The Opposition laugh. This is where politics begin to creep in, and it is a pity. These industries are socialised, and, surely, all of us want them to succeed, whether they are socialised or not. It is important that we should get the best men in the service of these Boards. If these men are to live a life which is really a Civil Service life, and are liable to be abused across the Floor of the House and subjected to Questions attacking them and their commercial ability we shall not get the men to serve on these commercial undertakings, and we shall not get the best out of those who are there.
Therefore, I say that we have to feel our way and get on as best we can, but I also say on behalf of the Government that this idea that any Question should be admissible, will degenerate into a process of pin-pricking these great commercial and economic undertakings, will weaken their nerve and ability, and will reproduce in these public corporations the very evils that are alleged to exist in the Civil Service. I am surprised that the Conservative Opposition should urge a policy which is bound to weaken the efficiency of these bodies, and to stimulate the very interference which they have been condemning. Why do they want to be able to put Questions about these things? I know. They want to be able to blacken, to damage—[Interruption.] Oh, yes. If they can they want to demoralise these public corporations. I quite understand this method on behalf of the Conservative Party. Whilst we are prepared to think about it, we must all watch as we go, and I think that this method is wrong and misjudged. I ask my hon. Friends to agree that the general course of the Government is right.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Whiteley): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [By Order.]

Read a Second time, and committed.

7.1 p.m.

Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: I beg to move:
That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to leave out Clause 41.
The Clause to which I wish to refer, and to which I hope the House will give most careful consideration, deals with the position of petty sessional divisions and justices' clerks. The administration of justice should be left quite clear and apart from interference, so that everyone who goes into the courts and has, therefore, reason to consider and weigh up the administration of justice, is satisfied with this position that exists. Broadly the point which I want to put to the House is that this Clause will constitute an attempt to interfere with justice, which will have an evil result.
I should like very shortly to remind hon. Members of the history of this matter. In last year's corresponding Bill, it was suggested that the two points which are involved, first, the responsibility for the alteration and revision of petty sessional divisions, and, secondly, the appointment and payment of justices' clerks, should be transferred to the Standing General Committee. This is a Committee on which the London County Council would have 50 per cent. of the members. That Clause was withdrawn after objection had been made, but almost immediately afterwards the London County Council sought to introduce, by way of a late Clause in the Bill, the provision which is now before the House. That was rejected by the Standing Orders Committee in another place as being, as I understand it, a close approximation to the Clause on which there had been an undertaking to withdraw. It is now introduced again. There is just one footnote to that history which I think the House ought to bear in mind, and that is that on 1st May, 1947, the London Council justices objected to this proposal and asked the Magistrates' Association to oppose it, the voting being 63 to 22, which was practically a three to one vote of the justices in the County of London.
The second point that I want to put to the House is that this proposal is not on the lines of the Report of the Committee presided over by Lord Roche which dealt with justices' clerks. The Roche Committee had in mind that the local authority should prepare and submit a scheme for the creation of a magistrates' courts committee. The Roche Committee contemplated that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would introduce, and this House would pass into legislative form, a scheme of general legislation by which this magistrates' courts committee would be appointed. The magistrates' courts committee would deal with the question of the revision and alteration of petty sessional boundaries and also with the appointment of justices' clerks.
Taking the most important aspect of the matter, the proposal to which we object is that in Subsection (7) where it says that an order under this Section, in so far as it relates to the remuneration of justices' clerks or of persons transferred to the service of such clerks, would be, first of all, subject to an agreement between the magistrates' courts committee and the County Council and in default to an agreement with the Secretary of State. The Roche Committee's suggestion was, I submit, a very different one. It was that the magistrates' courts committee should make the appointment and fix the remuneration after consultation. The more one considers this point the more one sees that there is a very great deal of difference between these two proposals. In one case the appointment of the clerk, which is of great importance to the justices sitting at petty sessions, would be made by them and the remuneration and salary would be fixed by them. In that case they would remain in control. In the other case, instead of being the fixing body, they become a negotiating body, who have to enter into negotiations and try to reach agreement with the local authority, and their position is immensely undermined.
The third point where there is a departure from the Roche Committee's recommendations is that the magistrates' courts committee would have to consult the London County Council on the alteration and revision of districts. That again seems to me to be a matter for the justices. The Roche Committee say that they should be masters in their own house, and


I see no reason to depart from that suggestion. Those are the differences.
Why is it that we say that these differences are important. It comes to this, that the London County Council is deeply concerned as a litigant with the litigation that goes on in those courts. The figures are striking. In 1946, out of 3,192 cases which were brought in these courts, no fewer than 1,980 were cases in which the London County Council was concerned either as prosecutor, complainant, or whatever may be the appropriate term. In 1947, out of 3,342 cases they were concerned in 1,879—that is, one year 62 per cent, or very nearly two-thirds, and the second year a little less, something like 56 per cent.
The Home Secretary has carried on and exemplified the admirable tradition which has rested in the Home Office in the relation between the Home Office and the administration of justice in London. I want to make it quite clear that, as far as my experience goes, there have been no complaints, but we have the position that there the central Government has the recommendation of the appointment of the magistrates and the same powers with regard to clerks, and it has also its very intimate connection with the Metropolitan Police. That has been developing for about a couple of centuries and it has gone very well. However, here we have a very different matter. We have not the central Government but a local elected body, which is very strongly concerned in the litigation which takes place in the courts, now asking for very extensive powers in regard to the appointment and remuneration of justices' clerks and also the powers which I have mentioned with regard to the alteration and revision of districts.
Even if we were completely satisfied—I would remind the House that there have been difficulties in the past—that there would be no interference and no difficulties created by reason of action taken by benches with which a certain clerk had sat, that is not the end of the matter, because what is important is not only that justice should be done, but that it should appear to be done. I cannot put it better than in the words of the Home Secretary himself when he was addressing the Justices' Clerks' Society

on 12th September last year. The right hon. Gentleman said:
It is important that the ordinary citizen should understand that the Government, whether national or local, when it appears in court has no privileged position but has to establish its case or see the case against it established in the same way as the ordinary private citizen; and that there is no central-direction of the way in which magistrates should act, that their decisions can be challenged in the courts but they cannot be overridden except in the most exceptional circumstances by any act or fiat of the Government of the day.
I agree with every word. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
That is a position—

Mr. Berry: Now apply that to justices' clerks.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I shall, but the hon. Member must not truncate the admirable sentiments of the Home Secretary on the occasions when he does express admirable sentiments. I shall not say whether they are few or many. He went on:
That is a position which it is very essential in this modern world, after the experience of the last 20 years, to maintain, and not merely to maintain as a principle but to see working day by day in practice in the courts.
The hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) has asked me to apply it to magistrates' clerks. I ask him for a moment to forget the responsible position which he occupies in many spheres. I am not being sarcastic; he knows what they are, and he will take it as quite genuine. Let him try to put himself for a moment in the position of one of my clients of years ago who goes into a police court. He has to answer a complaint made by the London County Council, and just before he goes into court he is told, "You know, before any one of these gentlemen who advise the justices and who"—this is the opinion of the world—"have great influence in advising the justices, can get an extra £50 or £100 a year rise in his salary, there has to be an agreement between him and the people who are prosecuting you today." I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at it that way.
I ask hon. Gentlemen to approach this in the manner in which I am sure they will all attempt to understand it. For years there has been at attempt to get rid of the term "police court." Why? Because


people like the client I have been describing, when they came into a building which was called "police court" thought, "This is the court of the police: this is the court where the police have power." Of course, they were wrong. However, I want British citizens not only to get justice, but to believe that they will get justice. I do not believe it will help if they know these facts, and someone is sure to tell them. As Sheridan said, some kind friend is bound to bring one bad news or anything bad said about one. Someone will say, "You are going to summon the L.C.C. You have not got a hope in—" whatever expression they like to use. That is put colloquially. I put it like that because during my first years at the Bar, I was constantly in petty sessional courts of all kinds, largely in the North of England, and am very familiar with the people who go to these courts and with the doubts and fears which occur to them.
I, therefore, asked hon. Gentlemen to consider this matter, I do not say from a sympathetic point of view, but from the point of view of trying to understand the mentality of those with whom we are dealing. That is the position, and I would add a footnote which may sound technical but is not so technical as it sounds. The Home Secretary will bear me out when I say that Section 34 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1914, which is differently framed from this, had to be introduced because of one incident and a certain fear on the lines on which I have spoken, though not concerned with London. I do not want to go into ancient history and drag out troubles of the past, but it was a difficulty of this sort which produced the different provisions in that Act.
I am most grateful to hon. Gentlemen opposite, who started by being somewhat unsympathetic to my thesis, for the very patient hearing they have given me. I want to say one word on the general position, and it is this. We have had the Roche Report. We now have the Royal Commission, of which Lord du Parcq is Chairman, dealing with justices. I fully understand the position of the right hon. Gentleman. He has got the Criminal justices Bill, of which I have seen a certain amount in Committee, and I am not suggesting for a moment that he can easily find Parliamentary time, but I am quite sure that when he has these Reports and has had an opportunity of considering

the matter he will be anxious to deal with this position of magistrates' clerks. I do not want to lay down opinions or to make this Debate a matter of opinion as to whether the Roche Report is right or not——

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I was a witness before the Committee.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If the right hon. Gentleman was a witness, then the Roche Committee had good fortune which many committees do not share. I hope to carry the House with me to this extent, that we should give grave consideration to the recommendations of the Roche Report and to whatever the Royal Commission may report, before we deal with this matter. When the Home Office and hon. Members in all quarters of the House have had a chance of consideration, then I think we will agree that the position of magistrates' clerks does require consideration and legislation. With the present set-up, there are possibilities of trouble arising. It is a great tribute to British good sense that trouble has not arisen before.
Therefore, this problem must be dealt with. I ask hon. Members who are very concerned with this Bill to consider it from that point of view. It would be very regrettable if we were to prejudice and prejudge the actions which this House ought to take on the Roche Report and on the Report which I understand will not be very long in coming from the Royal Commission, by introducing local attempts to deal with the problem. That is what is being done here. I do not think the precedent which is in the minds of hon. Members—I do not want to widen the scope by going into it in detail—has been such an astounding success in its change, to put it mildly, that they can get much solace from that. We have the alternative of tackling this question broadly, on the basis of altering the financial effect of the administration in the courts—that is, altering the destination of fines and making a national magistrates' clerks' service on the basis that they will be chosen by the justices and paid by the Exchequer, while leaving to the local authorities the question of buildings and the physical aspect of the matter. That is the alternative which we can adopt in the form that seems best to us when we have both the Reports.
The other choice is for piecemeal attempts to be made to deal with the problem by way of Private Bill. I suggest that from the point of view of the ordinary litigant, or from the point of view of order and form in our legislation—that is, in dealing with a national problem nationally by general legislation in this House in the ordinary way—we are led to hope and to ask that this suggestion of local legislation which involves the appearance of control of magistrates' clerks by the local authority should not be proceeded with.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. Berry: We have heard a lot about justices from the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). His form of justice, apparently, is the peculiar one by which he wishes to prevent a Committee of this House considering a Clause of the Bill simply because it relates to magistrates' clerks. I am bound to say that when he was talking so much about justice I queried good law. We all know the old tag of Seneca's about law and justice being strangers yet. As someone said to me after I became a Member of this House, "If law and justice are not the same thing, Parliament is to blame for it."
This Clause, which has earned the commination service from the right hon. and learned Gentleman—I can almost see him performing the commination service over it—does not depart from the recommendations of the Roche Committee. I rather liked his division of things—that the justices' clerks should be appointed by the magistrates, that their terms should be settled by the magistrates, and that the local authorities' part would be to pay them and provide the buildings, but that those who provided the buildings and paid should be shut out of things. I did not like the right hon. and learned Gentleman's sinister suggestion that justices' clerks could be influenced by those who pay their salaries. If that is his judgment of justices' clerks—and he knows much more about them than I do—then it must stand on the record of the House that that is his judgment. I thought a lot more highly of them. If he thinks that a responsible body like the London County Council—and I suppose I should declare my interest in this, as a member of the

London County Council—which is the world's premier municipal body, would act in the way he has suggested, he shows that while he may have a wide knowledge of law, he just does not know the London County Council.

Mr. Paget: Surely, the point is not whether the London County Council would act in this way, or whether magistrates' clerks would so act? The point is whether the man who is being prosecuted by the London County Council thinks they would act in this way.

Mr. Berry: Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would give me a chance; I was coming to that point. I remember that the right hon. and learned Gentleman placed me in the dock, so to speak, early on. He may have had more information than I in a former incarnation, but not in this incarnation. It is clear that neither the majority of justices' clerks nor the London County Council would act in the way suggested. It is not the justices' clerks but the justices who dispense justice and administer the law. I am aware that by the way some of them act they appear to try to arrogate to themselves that duty, and there has been many a battle. On occasions when I have been in court as a witness, I have heard those on the bench rebuke a clerk for overstepping the mark. It may not have been proper to rebuke him in open court, but the rebuke has been given. Justices' clerks are not the responsible people; the responsibility lies with those on the bench. It is right that an officer should tender any advice that he likes or deems fit, but it is always open to the person who is responsible to decide whether he should take that advice or not. I have frequently acted on that principle. There are people at the head of responsible bodies who take the advice of their officers as if it came from high Olympus. For my part, I generally add a bit of common sense and try to judge a case according to whether the advice given to me seems good or not. What is more, I generally try to have sufficient knowledge of the subject to enable me to judge.
It is a question of the people on the bench. With regard to the people on the bench every one in the House would be as one with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. We are all keen to keep English justice, English law and administration, as pure as ever it can be.


While justice may be pure and free in this country, the law is, and has been for years, rather on the side of the person with the longest purse, who can hire the most experienced lawyer to act for him. If that is not contrary to the spirit of Magna Charta, I should like to know what is. Still, doubtless, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will give that matter his consideration. However, that is by the way, although it is very pertinent.
We are all at one in wanting to keep English justice as pure and clean as possible. If I thought that the London County Council had the sinister motive the right hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested, not only would I not be on my feet advocating that we should allow this Bill to go upstairs, but I should be on my feet denouncing the proposition. From more than one quarter it has been asked, What is the view of the person in the street, who goes into the court—the view of the person who sues a great local authority, whether it be the London County Council or a lesser authority? The view of that person is twofold. He can argue his own case, although I know it is an axiom of gentlemen of the legal profession, that he who is his own advocate has a fool for a client; or, he can hire someone of better calibre amongst those who can be hired. If the word "hire" is offensive, it is not intended to be.
Is it to be, suggested—but it has been suggested—that if they go into court knowing that the magistrates' clerks are paid by the authority, at once they will have the feeling that the dice are loaded against them? But that would apply still more, in even greater degree, where the committee of an authority sits in a quasi judicial capacity, because the whole of the officers of that committee are, in fact, paid by the local authority that is a party to what is under consideration. The Public Control Committee of the London County Council have to decide quite a number of things in that way. I can bear witness, both as a former member of that committee, and as an onlooker, that if all legal decisions, in this history of this country had been as fair as those, this country would have been much better off from the legal point of view than it is at the present time; and this House would not have rung with Debates in days gone by about the

iniquities of more than one Lord Chief Justice. I may say in passing that one is delighted at the decision of the present Lord Chief Justice, who the other day corrected some of the iniquities of the War Office.
All that one can ask the House to do is allow this Bill to go upstairs, so that the Committee may go into it. I am wondering of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is afraid. He cannot ward to impeach the Committee that will sit or, the Bill, because not a single member of the London County Council will have a place on that Committee. In as much as that body is suspect in his eyes, it cannot be that a Committee of this House is suspect in his eyes. A Committee of the House, no matter how constituted, goes meticulously into the whole of the matter before it. A Committee of this House should not be stopped from considering a whole Bill, simply because the amour proper of magistrates' clerks is offended by this Clause. I do not know if the feelings of other people have been offended be fore by Clauses in public and private Bills; but, anyhow, that has not stopped the House sending those Bills to Committees for examination. I suggest that, inasmuch at we are at one with the right hon. and learned Gentleman in wanting to keep justice clean; and in wanting to have the appearance that justice is being done—in spite of the fact that almost all hon. Members here now are lawyers—the proper course is to refuse the Instruction suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and allow this Bill to go upstairs to be thoroughly examined.

7.35 P.m.

Mr. Maude: If I may be allowed to detain the House for a very few moments to make a debating speech in reply to what the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) has said, I hope the House will allow me immediately to say that the reason I am supporting my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) has absolutely nothing to do with the London County Council whatever. I have not the same interest in that body, if I may say so without offence, as the hon. Member for West Woolwich, who has had a distinguished career on the London County Council for many years. Nor have I, like the Home Secretary, given


evidence before Lord Roche's Committee. I notice that he appeared for the County Council's Association. A further member of that Association who gave evidence was called Lamb—which led whither, I do not know.
In replying to the hon. Member for West Woolwich, let me put first this consideration. It is not possible, I believe, in a moment of calm such as we have tonight for anyone in his senses to think that we want to prevent the Committee from considering this particular Clause of the Bill because it concerns justices' clerks. That is putting our case too low. To put it at its proper height, I would say that we want to prevent the Committee from considering this Clause 41, because, in fact, it is against reason and common sense.
Let me remind the House of the very distinguished people who sat on Lord Roche's committee. First, there was Lord Roche himself, to whom one feels indebted, from a national point of view, simply because he is a most distinguished judge, and a man who is humane and sensible, having a great knowledge of human nature. There was Miss Margery Fry, Lord Merthyr, Mr. Leo Page—whose full part in our national life I sometimes feel we fail to realise—and Lord Schuster. There were other persons, but I have picked out these at random, because these I know. They took infinite trouble over this matter. To say that the Bill does not depart from the recommendations of that Committee is really to mistake what the Roche Committee recommended. The Roche Committee as I understand it, recommended that these appointments should be made with detachment to ensure that the appointments were nothing other than judicial appointments.
At first sight, it would appear to be unusual and strange that those who pay the piper should not call the tune. The Home Secretary confirms the appointments. Those who pay the fees have no say in the appointments. That may seem strange, but it is not inequitable. The person who appoints is the person whom I believe to be best qualified to appoint, whatever the Government of the day. I do not believe we shall ever get back to the state of the 18th century, when there was gross corruption in Whitehall, coming from the top. The appointment,

curiously enough, is by the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the boroughs throughout England appear to have enjoyed the system. There has been no drive to abolish it. I do not remember having seen recorded, either in books of semi-fiction or legal text-books, any suggestion that the system has worked to the detriment of the State. Therefore, that is a curious instance in which the Secretary of State appoints and all is thought to be as well as possible.
What is suggested now in this London County Council (General Powers) Bill is really different from that. Indeed, there would arise under the terms of the Bill a situation in which persons who are not judical officers, that is, not justices of the peace, would suddenly have a say not only in the appointment but in the dismissal also; a situation in which these persons could undoubtedly bring influence to bear. My belief is that Members on both sides of the House know perfectly well from their experience of life that it is human to eye, at any rate discreetly, if not with anxiety, those persons who have the power of sacking one or of taking steps in the direction of getting what is so disagreeably called "the sack" administered to one.
It is perfectly true, as has been said, that magistrates' clerks are persons of integrity as well as experience; integrity was the chief quality which the hon. Member wished to stress. Nevertheless, the litigant appearing in front of a bench would feel more secure and much easier in his mind if he knew that those persons who have taken oaths to do justice, as we all have to do when we go on the bench, and who feel strongly, as do many hon. Members opposite, about their judicial work—they love doing it—should make appointments. It is much better that those persons who really have a vocation for this function of justice should make the appointments.
It does not really matter that those who pay the piper call the tune or make the appointments. In this case the loss to the L.C.C. will be absolutely nil. I hope that the House will forgive me for not giving the name of a particular borough; I am being particularly careful not to say whether it is a city or other-wise; but I have discovered——

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Before the hon. and learned Member


leaves the point he has been making, may I put this point? He has suggested, I think, that the L.C.C. would have some part in the sacking of magistrates' clerks. I am not sure why he says that. There is nothing whatever in Clause 41 which gives the L.C.C. or any committee of the council any power whatever with regard to the dismissal or termination of the office of magistrates' clerks.

Mr. Maude: I am obliged to the hon. Member. I may be mistaken, but I should have thought that under Subsection (5, a, ii) there was obviously a reference to that in the words
all or any functions of the justices acting in and for divisions with respect to the appointment and termination of the appointment of justices' clerks.

Mr. Paget: If the hon. and learned Member would permit me, may I say that there is Subsection (6, a) which deals with the alteration and abolition of a division, or the constitution of a new division.

Mr. Maude: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Member. It is essential that we should know what is intended and what is possible. I hope that the House will think that it is a grave matter for an outside body to interfere in the appointment, let alone the consideration of the terms of remuneration, etc., to which the hon. and learned Member has drawn my attention.
It is true that in this country, as the hon. Member said, the justices and not the justices' clerks administer the law, a remark which was greeted by two rather faint cheers, I forget from which side of the House. The real truth is, as we all know—and I assume that we have all tried to read as much as is possible for busy Members to read of what the Roche Report says—that the influence of magistrates' clerks on the justices is simply enormous. There can be no doubt about that. When the Judge-Advocate used to retire with members of a court martial, the man who was being tried had the idea, if there had been an adverse summing up, that the Judge-Advocate was going to put in a word against him. So, in the same way, it is not beyond the experience of myself and the members of my profession, who I hope will support me in this, that the justices' clerk is a most extraordinarily important person in court. I look back over 25 years and I can remember, as a

young barrister, feeling that the magistrates' clerk was a person whom one should know by name, and smile at, so that at any rate he should not dislike one and should listen patiently to one's argument. It is obvious that in the complicated cases which now come before the courts, and are doing so in increasing numbers, it is extremely important that one should not think that justices' clerks are without a considerable amount of influence.
As I say, my mind is not influenced by the question of any particular county council. My mind is tremendously influenced in this matter by the fact that persons for whom I have enormous respect have given tremendous thought and care to this and have decided what was best. I now see something coming along which I believe the right hon. and learned Gentleman was right in raising tonight. He must have known, as most of us must have known, that we should have a comparatively small House tonight, but that it would be composed of persons who would really consider it worth while just to think again.
I believe, and I say this with deep sincerity, that this is the wrong way to approach a matter of major importance, that the proper way to do it is in exactly the way the Roche Committee suggested. I should infinitely prefer to see the State, the central authority, pay for justices' clerks rather than some local authority. I believe that to be right. I believe that Lord Merthyr's addendum to the Report, which was an important one, was right, that in fact the situation would be worsened by this provision of the Bill as it stands. The fact that standing joint committees have at the present lime powers not dissimilar to these which are asked for is an argument the wrong way. The sensible thing is to take the real step forward that Lord Roche and others have indicated, and to thank them for it.

7.49 P.m.

Mr. Gibson: I ask the House to reject this Motion, because the Clause in the Bill is good common sense. I am supported in that feeling by the fact that for some years I was a member of the standing joint committee which, as the House knows, consists half of justices and half of members of the county council, the justices being the people who most regularly attend. But during the whole


of that period the standing joint committee in London has been in favour of something similar to what is proposed in this Clause. I have never heard any of them say a single word against it. I left the standing joint committee in 1945, but I do not think they have said anything contrary since then. My point is that those people who were engaged in administering the business of the courts in the London area were all, magistrates as well as county council representatives, unitedly in favour of the proposals contained here. Indeed, they were in favour of much more drastic proposals, such as were contained in the Bill of last year.
It seems to me that if the House is to be influenced by people who have had the job of administering the business side of the petty sessional courts, then they must be influenced considerably by the unanimity of opinion which has been shown in the past by the standing joint committee. I agree, as I am sure does every hon. Member, that the last thing anyone in the House, or in the country, would wish to support is interference by elected persons with the administration of justice. I would join with anyone in a fight against such interference by elected persons, especially in view of some of the things that have happened in Europe in the last year or two.
What does the Clause propose? It proposes that a joint committee of the justices shall be set up; that that committee shall consider a scheme for the reorganisation of the London Petty Sessions and such questions as the salaries of clerks and, what is equally important, of the people employed by the clerks; that the justices shall prepare a scheme and that they shall consult the London County Council when they have prepared their scheme. If they can reach agreement, the scheme will be submitted to the Secretary of State, who shall consult representatives from any body before he gives the final order. It seems to me, therefore, that there is ample protection for anybody who may have any fears as to what may happen under Clause 41 of the Bill.
A good deal has been said about the Roche Committee. I have not a copy of the Committee's Report before me, but I think that in paragraph 92 of their Report the Committee referred to the undesirability of direct control by elected

people. There is no direct control by any elected person in this proposal. The proposal is a scheme for reorganisation, which everybody who has had anything to do with the courts in London during recent years will admit has to be carried out. The scheme will be prepared by the justices. The fact that all the money has to be provided by the London ratepayers, through the London County Council—as indeed it is now—and that the London County Council shall be consulted before the scheme is finally put into operation, is, in my submission, good common sense, and will bring a little better business management into the affairs of our courts in London.
What is equally important is that it will give a definite status to the magistrates' clerks, and the people they employ, and will give them the pensionable rights which, at the moment, they do not possess. It will, therefore, achieve something which is in line with the work of this House, at any rate, for the last two and a half years. I hope the House will not be impressed by the kind of vague suggestion that this is some attempt by elected persons to interfere with the administration of justice. It has the support of the standing joint committee and of anybody who has made a study of this matter. I hope the House will reject this Motion.

7.55 P.m.

Mr. Paget: We are concerned here with justice. I hope very much that we shall not divide on the party line in this matter because justice is universal. It is suggested that this direction is a kind of hole and corner affair to prevent the Committee upstairs from considering what is in the Bill. That surely does show a misunderstanding of how this House works. I say that with great respect. We have a Second Reading Debate. The Second Reading is to consider the principles involved. After we, as a House, have settled those principles it is a matter for the Committee to consider the details. I do not propose to go into the details of this Clause. The right hon. Gentleman dealt with them with great lucidity.

Mr. Oliver Poole: Will the hon. and learned Member please address his remarks to the House, and not to his hon. Friends behind him, as he is inaudible?

Mr. Paget: I am sorry. If the hon. Member was sitting somewhere else it would be better.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must address the Chair.

Mr. Paget: The point we have to decide is whether we approve of the principle behind Clause 41. I will not use any controversial terms, but it is to give to the London County Council control over the appointment and remuneration of magistrates' clerks——

Mr. Albert Evans: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman indicate the Subsection which states the powers that the county council will possess over the appointment of a single magistrates' clerk?

Mr. Paget: Yes, certainly:
(7) An order under this Section in so far as it relates to the remuneration of justices' clerks or of persons transferred to the service of or appointed by the committee to assist such clerks in the performance of their duties shall provide that the remuneration of every such clerk or person shall be such as may be determined from time to time by agreement between the committee"——

Mr. A. Evans: There is no word in that Subsection of dismissal or employment of justices' clerks.

Mr. Paget: No. The Subsections which involve this point are Subsection (5, a, ii) and Subsection (6, a). Those are the provisions which involve both the appointment and dismissal.

Mr. House: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The subject under Debate is the consultation between the London County Council and the justices. The question of appointment and termination does not come within the purview of such consultations.

Mr. Paget: The question of remuneration is something which is to be bargained for between those two bodies. On the remuneration of any clerk, or if it is proposed to increase the remuneration they have to agree. The council has some voice in the remuneration of the clerk and that is quite sufficient to bring up the principle. I do not want to go into a Committee point as to the extent to which the council have a word in the appointment or in the dismissal. That is a matter of detail. It is quite sufficient that what we are dealing with is the remuneration.
There are two principles involved, about which we shall all be in agreement. The first is that it is most important that the executive and the judicial functions shall be absolutely apart. The second is that if the magistrates' clerk is to be a judge or has a judicial function—that is the point upon which this argument arose—it is wrong that he should be dependent in any sense at all, whether it be for appointment, dismissal or remuneration, upon the people who appear as parties in actions tried before him.

Mr. Berry: Tried before him—the magistrates' clerk?

Mr. Paget: Yes, the action is tried before him, in a physical sense. He is sitting there, and they are in front of him.

Mr. Berry: Does my hon. and learned Friend suggest that the magistrates' clerk is a judge?

Mr. Paget: That is exactly what we are coming to. I understand that we are all in agreement that Clause 41 is wrong, if the magistrates' clerk is to be a judge but not if he is—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Somebody disagrees with what I have said. My hon. Friend has said most emphatically that Clause 41 would be utterly wrong if the magistrates' clerk were the judge. I would deal with this matter from the practical point of view.
I have appeared and practised in a great many magistrates' courts in my time. There are magistrates' courts in which the clerk does not play a very prominent part and in which a strong chairman is in charge of the court and really conducts the proceedings. There are also courts which are ruled by the clerks with a rod of iron. [An HON. MEMBER:—"It is wrong."] It may be wrong, but it is mere casuistry to say that, in such courts, he clerk is not the judge. [An HON. MEMBER: "That may be so in London."] If the clerk be the judge, it is wrong that he should be remunerated by the prosecutor. That is the practical point. Even in the best conducted courts, he is a judge, in that he is the judge of the law. It is for the magistrates to decide the facts. It is for the clerk to direct them as to the law. Take an ordinary court. The judge is only the judge of the law. The jury are the judge of the facts. So, in a magistrates' court the clerk is the judge of law and the magistrates are the


judges of facts. In view of that, we can say that the clerk is a judge.
The clerk has one other duty which is more important than that of being a judge. It is a duty in which his complete independence of the prosecutor is most important. Most people who appear before magistrates have no idea how to conduct their case. Among the most important duties of a magistrates' clerk is that of seeing that the defence is brought out and properly presented. It is his job to see that the prosecution's witnesses are cross-examined, that the defence which a poor layman is quite incapable of developing for himself, is put effectively to those witnesses and that the defence is developed and understood by the magistrates. If that be the clerk's duty, and it is his most important duty, it cannot be right that he should be remunerated by the prosecutor. That is the principle. Surely, it is elementary. His function is such that for him to be remunerated by the prosecutor, and for the prosecutor to have a say in what he earns, is quite wrong.
Now let us look at the matter from another point of view. It is deeply important that those who administer justice should be fair, and that those to whom it is administered should have a feeling of absolute fairness. If we pass the Bill in its present form we shall not get that position. The Association of Magistrates' Clerks—the Bill is to their advantage, as it gives them pensionable rights—are bitterly opposed to the Bill, it spite of that financial advantage. They have put in a Memorandum begging us to reject the principle, because it will involve their independence. Not only are the Magistrates' Clerks Association, to their financial disadvantage, taking that line for the sake of their independence, but the Magistrates' Association are also taking it.
I was today having lunch with Mr. Daniel Hopkins, who sat for many years as a Labour Member in this House. He is now a London magistrate and chairman of the Magistrates' Association of London. They are affected by this Bill. He, as a Labour man of great experience on these benches, is anxious that we should give the Committee this Instruction. He feels that the Bill would involve the independence of the court over which he sits and that that would be bad for

justice. I would like to read a passage from the evidence which was given by Lord Schuster, who was for 30 years the Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor and was more responsible than anybody else for the appointment of magistrates and for advising the Lord Chancellor. He said:
It is impossible to avoid the suspicion in the public mind that the body which fixes and pays the salaries and sanctions any increase to it has some control or influence over the recipients. I am quite sure that there are places where the clerk's salary is affected by the way in which the bench happen to go on particular matters.
Lord Roche asked him:
Do you really think it has gone as tar as that?
Lord Schuster replied:
I am quite sure that it has.
If a bench throws out prosecutions, the clerk feels, rightly or wrongly, when there is a reconsideration of his salary, that his conduct in court may affect that reconsideration. That is why the associations are bitterly opposing it.

Mr. Thurtle: Does the hon. and learned Member think for a Moment that the magistrates' clerk is justified in so thinking?

Mr. Paget: I can only say that Lord Schuster told Lord Roche that he was quite certain that magistrates' clerks were quite right in so thinking. I will not match my experience against Lord Schuster's, but I do not think that it matters whether he is right in so thinking. I do not think it matters whether the man in the dock is right in so thinking. The main thing here is that he does think so, that the magistrates' clerk thinks so, that the magistrates think so, and, far more, that the man in the dock thinks so. Again, I say that this is a matter of justice upon which we should not divide. It is a matter on which we should meet quite independently. If we pass this Clause, we shall do something which will injure the ordinary man who appears before the courts. It will injure his confidence in justice. He will feel that those who are responsible for seeing that his defence has a fair run—and that is the clerk's job—are in the pay and under the influence of the council.

Mr. A. Evans: They are now.

Mr. Paget: It is not fixed. The county council has no right in connection with, or influence on, pay.

Mr. Evans: Is not the hon. and learned Member aware that at present these salaries and conditions are fixed by a joint committee of the representatives of the County Council and the justices?

Mr. Paget: No, they are not. They are fixed by the justices, and by nobody but the justices. A previous suggestion was that they should be fixed by a joint committee. I urge that we should give this Instruction.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: We have heard some very inspiring sentiments from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) and from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) about justice. I am sure we all agree with the ideals to which tribute has been paid. Justice should not only be done, but seem to be done. I rather doubt whether either the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite or my hon. and learned Friend have done justice to the London County Council in some of the remarks they have made with regard to the purposes of this Bill and, in particular, with reference to Clause 41. I think hon. Members should know that, substantially, the recommendations of the Roche Committee have been followed in Clause 41, for reasons which I propose to show. It is untrue to say that there has been any departure from the recommendations of the Roche Committee in the sense suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton. I really began to doubt at some stages whether my hon. and learned Friend had read Clause 41. Hon. Members should appreciate what it does.
At present justices' clerks in London, and I think elsewhere, are appointed in each petty sessional district by the justices of that particular petty sessional district. A Clause in last year's Bill by the London County Council was introduced for the purpose of transferring these powers to the standing joint committee. Objection was taken to that Clause which would have had that effect, and it was for the express purpose of meeting the objection raised in the House last year that the amended proposal, the

new proposal in Clause 41, was inserted. It proposes that a scheme should be prepared. I want to make it clear that the scheme adumbrated in Clause 41 will ensure that the appointment in future of any justices' clerk in London is made by a committee of magistrates. Nobody else is able to interfere. That is precisely in accord with the recommendations of the Roche Committee. That Committee recommended that in each county there should be constituted a committee of justices from the whole county. That is the first and central purpose of Clause 41. The chairman and vice-chairman of the magistrates will automatically be members and there may be such other members as may be suggested. The scheme is subject to the approval of the Home Secretary. The county council have no say in the appointment of any magistrates' clerks or in the removal of them.
The only possible point which can be urged by the opponents of this Bill is with regard to the terms of remuneration of justices' clerks. It is conceded that the ratepayers of London, through their elected representatives, pay for the administration of justice, the provision of the courts and buildings, magistrates' clerks, clerical work, and everything else. Reference has been made on both sides to the recommendation of the Roche Committee about remuneration, but I propose, I think for the first time, to read textually their recommendation. The right hon. and learned Member for West Derby and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton both suggested that the Roche Committee recommended that matters of remuneration ought to be excluded from any interference whatever by the county council. That is not correct. I entirely agree with the tributes paid to the eminent, competent and worthy team who assisted Lord Roche in the valuable Departmental Report which was prepared. The Roche Committee recommended on page 30, that the powers and duties of the magistrates' courts committees should be:
To fix all salaries to be paid to clerks.. after consultation with the Standing Joint Committee and with the Borough Councils concerned.
I stress the words, "after consultation." Nothing is said expressly about London. The situation of London is always peculiar in these matters. It is clear from other


parts of the Report that the Committee were seized with the special position that exists in London. Whereas outside London the borough and the county may be a police authority, and, therefore in that capacity is an interested party, in London the London County Council is not a police authority. Therefore, the general objections which occur to anybody about giving an elected authority, which is also a police authority, complete or partial control over the question of the remuneration of justices' clerks, do not arise in London.
I emphasise that the Roche Committee recognised the necessity for consultation between the magistrates' courts committee and the council, the elected authority. Either that consultation was to be real, or unreal. I imagine that it was to be real consultation, and that the Roche Committee contemplated that the local authorities concerned should be consulted on questions of remuneration. Therefore, they did not exclude that from their recommendations. In Clause 41 it is suggested that this matter of remuneration should, in the first place, be a matter for agreement between the magistrates' committee and the county council, and that, in the absence of agreement, it should be determined by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It is not true to say that the county council is the determining or vital factor, or that the magistrates' clerks can really be influenced—which I thought was a most far-fetched suggestion. This Bill is designed to give a measure of security and protection, with provision for superannuation and remuneration for magistrates' clerks. It is designed to ensure that in future there shall be one body governing the appointment of magistrates' clerks on a sensible systematic basis instead of letting every set of magistrates in every petty sessional division select their own clerk.
In future, we shall have this centralised machinery, and that will be a great advantage. I imagine that the magistrates' committee and the county council will fix a proper scale of remuneration, but, if there should be any dispute, then this remuneration will be fixed by the Home Secretary. That, I think, is a very good thing, and is in accord with the observations of Lord Schuster and Lord Merthyr to which reference has been made.
Having had this full discussion, I hope the House will realise that, despite all the very eloquent tributes which have been paid to the great importance in this country of always having an independent judiciary, to which we all subscribe, and despite the occasionally anomalous situation of our legal system, in the sense, for example, that the head of our judiciary is also a member of the Cabinet, and that there are inevitably occasions when the State appears as litigant, no one has ever suggested that justice is defiled because, in the last resort, the Crown is a litigant in civil matters or the prosecutor in criminal matters, and also has to determine the remuneration, not only of judges, but that of clerks and the amounts paid to juries and everybody.
I hope that, having heard all the farfetched arguments that may be raised against this Clause, the House will resist the proposed instruction and support the London County Council in their endeavours to establish in London an opportunity of trying out these very recommendations of the Roche Committee, knowing that, in the pressure of legislative business to which this progressive Government are committed, it may well be some time before general legislation can be introduced to deal with the whole of these provisions.

8.22 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Younger): I rise to suggest to the House that the disagreements about this Clause which have been manifested in this Debate are of a type which can perfectly well be threshed out upstairs, and that they should be so threshed out. They are not of the fundamental character which would justify us in giving an Instruction to the Committee that this Clause is to be left out.
I am not concerned at this stage to defend in detail all the provisions of Clause 41 which have been attacked from both sides of the House. I want to remind the House that Clause 41 is quite a long one, and that the criticisms of it have been limited pretty narrowly to one or two passages in it, and that, broadly speaking, this Clause, if it were to be passed into law, would introduce a system which nobody has criticised and which is in strict accord with the recommendations of the Roche Committee.
If I might just recapitulate what the Clause does, omitting all the details in dispute, it provides for setting up a magistrates' courts committee and giving that committee power, subject to certain conditions, to revise the constitution of divisions, to make arrangements for the appointment and the termination of the appointment of justices' clerks and their assistants, to provide for their remuneration, and certain other ancillary matters connected with the employment and status of clerks and their assistants. Stated thus, I am not aware that these propositions are seriously in dispute. The Roche Committee certainly recommended that some system covering these points should be introduced, and nobody here tonight has suggested that it would not be useful to carry out this recommendation. The objections have related, I think I may fairly say, entirely to the part the local authority should play in all the matters contained in the Clause to which I refer. Throughout the Roche Committee's Report, it is certainly not disputed, nor has it been disputed tonight, that the local authority has a legitimate interest in this matter of the remuneration of clerks, and that the organisation of the system for which it is paying is an interest of some kind is, I suggest, common ground. The question is: what is the nature of that interest, and to what extent should it be given powers to look after its own interests in this matter?
My hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) has really absolved me from going into great detail in comparisons with the provisions of the Roche Committee's Report and the provisions of this Bill. I thought my hon. Friend made it very clear that, in previous speeches, there had been a great deal of exaggeration of the differences between the system proposed in the Report and the system proposed in the Bill, and I was glad that he corrected what seemed to me to be an inaccuracy in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude) in suggesting that the council had any effective part in the appointment or termination of appointment of justices' clerks. There is no such provision in the Bill, and the dispute really relates to the question of remuneration.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me for a moment? It is rather a vital point. If he would not

mind following the Bill, he will see that Subsection (5) states that, subject to the provisions of the next following three Subsections, which includes Subsection (7), the order is to provide for the transfer to the committee—
of all or any functions of the justices … with respect to the appointment and termination of appointment"—
and so on. That means that the powers of the magistrates' committee in regard to appointment and termination of appointment are subject to Subsection (7); that is, in appointing and fixing a salary, they would have to be, subject to Subsection (7), in agreement with the local authority, so that the local authority would come in in that way.

Mr. Younger: I hesitate to cross swords on a matter of legal interpretation with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but I am bound to say that, on reading the first line of Subsection (7), I read it as excluding matters relating to appointment, because it states—
An order under this Section, in so far as it relates to the remuneration of justices' clerks"—
and so on. I find it a little difficult to explain how any Subsection starting with those words could be taken to relate to anything but the question of remuneration, but that is a point which is quite suitable for discussion in Committee.
The point I wish to make now is that, if one compares the system proposed by the Roche Report and the system proposed in the Bill, one finds that the differences are much less substantial than has been suggested. I do not want to suggest that we should regard the Roche Committee's Report in any sense as our Bible, but I do subscribe to the expressions of respect for that Committee's views which have been made on both sides of the House, and I think that nobody here would be objecting to the provisions of this Clause if they thought that, substantially, the recommendations of the Roche Committee's Report were being followed. Under both systems, the final arbiter in this matter of remuneration is the Secretary of State. Permission by the Secretary of State is required in both cases, and, also in both cases, there is a provision bringing in the local authorities. In the one case under the Roche Committee, they are brought in under the phrase which says:


Magistrates courts committees shall fix salaries after consultation with standing joint committees and borough councils.
In the other case, under the Bill, Subsection (7) says that remuneration is to be determined
by agreement between the committee and the Council.
If hon. Members will turn to paragraph 171 of the Roche Committee's report—which I do not think has been mentioned so far—they will find that the two things compare even more closely, because there it is pointed out that, whilst the magistrates courts committee is to fix the salaries, the Secretary of State is to fix them in the event of a local dispute. That is really precisely the same thing as saying that it is to be determined by the Secretary of State in default of agreement.
I think there may be some small divergences, very suitable for discussion in Committee, between those two solutions, but I find it very hard to see that there is a great difference of principle. Much the same thing applies to the other main point in dispute, which is the question of the power to group and regroup divisions. There, again, in both cases, confirmation by the Secretary of State is required, so that he is, in any event, either in the Report or the Bill, the final authority.
Under the Bill, it is said that what the Secretary of State has to pronounce upon is a scheme proposed by the justices' committee in consultation with the local authority. That is what the Secretary of State is called upon to confirm or reject. It is true that, under the Roche Committee's recommendations, there is no mention of the intervention of the Council at that stage, before it reaches the Secretary of State. But there is a provision that the Secretary of State, when this matter comes before him, must hear representations from persons or bodies concerned. It is inconceivable that the phrase, "persons or bodies concerned," should not include local authorities. Therefore, before the Secretary of State takes his final decision which, in either system, is the effective decision, it is perfectly clear that there will be an opportunity for the local authority to make its point of view known.
I do not wish at this stage to be appearing to take sides between these two ways of doing it. That seems to me to be eminently a matter which might be discussed upstairs; but when one compares those two things carefully, one cannot really find a great issue of principle affecting the whole status of justices' clerks, and affecting the whole impression which defendants or other parties in these courts get of the administration of justice.
Before I sit down, I will just touch on one other point which has not been mentioned by many hon. Members, although it was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It is the question whether or not this Clause should await incorporation in some national legislation following out the recommendations of the Roche Committee's Report in general. I would only say that it is not possible, at the present time, to state how soon such legislation will be introduced, that the reorganisation, which can only be effected under this proposed Clause, has been considered urgent in the County of London ever since before the war; that there are real advantages to be gained, both for the administration of justice and also, as has been stated, for the position in relation to terms of service of the justices' clerks themselves by introducing this provision where one can.
As my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington said, the County of London has always, for purposes of this kind, been something of an exception. There is nothing anomalous, nothing wrong in itself, in treating the County of London alone in this matter. I should have thought it was eminently reasonable to take this chance to put this system, with which, in general, everybody seems to be in agreement, into force in this self-contained area, one of the most important areas in the country. As the London County Council (General Powers) Bill is coming forward at this moment—a type of Bill in which this Clause may very suitably be included—I would suggest to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the House that it would be a mistake to prevent a proper discussion of what, I submit, are relatively detailed differences of opinion, in the Committee upstairs.

Question put, and negatived.

Orders of the Day — WATER BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered.

CLAUSE 4.—(Supply of water In bulk.)

8.36 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. John Edwards): I beg to move, in page 4, line 15, to leave out "supplying water in," and to insert:
authorised to supply water in any part of.
This and the three further Amendments immediately following it are drafting Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 4, line 22, leave out from "order," to "shall," in line 23.

In line 25, leave out "the said."

In line 25, after "twenty-three," insert "of the principal Act."—[Mr. J. Edwards.]

CLAUSE 8.—(Power to survey and search for water on land proposed to be purchased.)

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 7, line 18, at the end, to insert:
(6) If any damage or injury is caused by reason of anything done or omitted to be done in the carrying out of works in pursuance of this section or by reason of failure to reinstate the land properly after carrying out any such works, the owner or occupier of the land on which works have been or are being carried out under this section, shall not be under any liability in respect thereof.
This Clause gives power to search for water on land proposed to be purchased, and Subsections (4) and (5) contain certain protections for the occupiers and owners of the land. Under Subsection (4), a person interested in the land may obtain compensation from the authority making the survey if, in fact, damage results from those efforts. Under Subsection (5), if damage is done by the escape of water, then, again, the local authority is made responsible.
At first sight, it appears to me that what is left out of this Bill is the case where the local authority, entering upon

land under this Clause, digs a well or a trench and leaves it open, or, alternatively, does not properly reinstate the land, and where, as a result of that act of omission, another person may suffer injury such as, for instance, a broker leg. In those circumstances, it ought to be made quite clear in this Bill that the occupier or owner of the land, who has not done any work on the land, is in no way liable at common law for those damages. But for the Amendment I am now moving, a person entering upon that land, who broke his leg in the circumstances I have described, through falling into a trench dug by the local authority, might well start an action against the owner or occupier of the land. Indeed, he might delay so long as to be debarred from commencing action against the local authority. Bearing in mind that there is no responsibility upon the owner or occupier of the land for the damage which that individual suffers, it seems to me that the inclusion of these words is desirable, and that they would at least lead to a clarification of the position.

Mr. Osborne: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. J. Edwards: I am advised that this Amendment is not necessary and that the general law as it stands, should ensure that the onus for damage caused by what I think are technically called traps will be placed upon the person responsible for creating the danger. In any case, I doubt whether the intention of the hon. and learned Gentleman would be achieved by his Amendment. I think he would agree with me that there are circumstances in which the owner of the land might legitimately be proceeded against if, for example, he had received full compensation under Subsection (4), where clearly the liability of the local authority would then have come to an end. As the Amendment is drafted, I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman would achieve his object. However, I do not think that is very important at the moment, because I am satisfied that the law as it stands removes the onus from the owner or the occupier; or if, in any circumstances, an action would lie, the owner or occupier would be able to deal with the local authority and bring them into the case and, indeed, I think in most cases would get complete indemnity.
In those circumstances I think it unnecessary for the Amendment to be pressed. I should not want to insert these words, or words like them, in this Bill in which we have followed a good deal of precedent, because if we inserted these words specifically it might be thought that we were doubtful about the use in other statutes of words similar to those in this Clause. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not press the Amendment.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: With the leave of the House, I should like to put a further point to the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not think there is any disagreement between us as to what we want to achieve, but there occurs to me a case which might involve difficulty. Suppose that a trench has been dug or a hole made and a man walks into it at night and breaks his leg. True, the local authority has created the trap. It has done so on the land in the occupation of some other person. Primarily the occupier is liable for damages for traps on his land. It might well be that the action against the occupier would be commenced after the time for commencing an action against the local authority had run out, in which case there would be no possibility of an injured person obtaining damages from the local authority. It was to cover that rather exceptional possibility that I moved this Amendment. I think it would improve the Bill. I do not take any particular pride in the drafting of the words, but if the Parliamentary Secretary would assure me that he will give the matter further consideration I would, with the leave of the House, withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. J. Edwards: The hon. and learned Gentleman was good enough——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): If the hon. Gentleman wishes to speak again, he should ask the leave of the House, as he has already spoken.

Mr. Edwards: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I thought that under Standing Order 46, if I was in charge of the Bill, I had the right to speak again.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That does not apply on this particular occasion. There is an easy way out. The hon. Gentle-

man need not fear what the House might say.

Mr. Edwards: I am very much obliged to you, Sir. I am very sorry to have fallen into an error. Perhaps I may have the leave of the House to speak again. As I was about to say, the hon. and learned Gentleman was good enough to give me notice of this Amendment before he put it down, so that I have been able to go into it very carefully. I am assured by my legal advisers that the Clause as it stands gives all the protection that is needed. It is a form which we have used in other statutes and, therefore, I am not in any position to say that I can look at this matter again, because there will not be another occasion, but I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will accept my assurance.

Amendment negatived.

CLAUSE 14.—(Miscellaneous provisions and consequential amendments.)

Mr. J. Edwards: I beg to move, in page 10, line 25, at the end, to insert:
(3) Paragraph (a) of the proviso to subsection (1) of the said section thirty-three (which provides that an order under that section shall not vary the quantity of compensation water required by any local enactment to be discharged into any watercourse) shall have effect as if after the word 'vary,' there were inserted the word 'compulsorily.'
At an earlier stage in our consideration of this Bill my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) moved some Amendments which he subsequently withdrew, the effect of which would have been to empower the Minister to include provisions for the compulsory variation of compensation water in orders made under Sections 23 and 33 of the Act. I then promised to look into these matters further. As I said on an earlier occasion, I have a good deal of sympathy with the point of view which my hon. Friend expressed, but since the matter was last raised I have been able to consult some of the interests concerned and I have become aware that there would be formidable opposition from some of them. I feel, therefore, that it would be wrong at this rather late stage, especially in view of the fact that I said when I first spoke on this Bill—and it was said in another place also—that we regarded this matter as essentially non-contentious. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion that I


cannot agree that the Bill should be amended to the extent proposed by my hon. Friend.
However, I think that there is good reason for bringing Section 33 of the Act—that is the Section which enables the Minister by order to repeal or amend local enactments—into line with Section 23, by providing that under the former Section it will be possible by means of the Minister's order to make provision for the variation of compensation water where there is agreement. By "variation," one means variation either way—to increase or reduce. This provision is already covered under the first proviso of Section 23 (1) where the Minister makes an order under that Section. I think it would be agreed that there are cases in which we have complete changes of circumstances, where it may be possible to get agreement, and then this easier procedure would be worth while.
I am sorry that I have not been able to go further to meet my hon. Friend's point, with which I have a good deal of sympathy, but I am anxious that this important Measure, which was designed to bring the 1945 Act up to date, and to improve on the procedure in some respects, should not be a battleground for the various interests which centre around our water supplies.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The Parliamentary Secretary has gone just to the right limit to avoid any opposition. We should not object to this particular Amendment which gives power, as I understand it, to vary the enactment so as to provide for the variation of compensation water by agreement between the interested parties. I think that will improve the Bill, but I am very glad he has not gone so far as to say that he should take power to make such variation compulsory, which is what the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) was asking on the last occasion.

Mr. Berry: It is pleasant for me to feel I am in agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) on this matter, and if he could only extend the same spirit of sweet reasonableness to his friends in the country, I will undertake to do the same with my friends, so

that what we desire shall be done throughout the country. I think justice is done by this Clause—or shall we say justice is done by the Amendment—until there is a regular revolution in the water industry.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 10, line 43, after "order," insert "and any order repealed thereby."—[Mr. J. Edwards.]

Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Orders of the Day — SUMMER TIME

8.49 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I beg to move:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in pursuance of the provisions of Section 2 of the Summer Time Act, 1947, praying that the Summer Time Order, 1948, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 9th February.
This is the first time a Motion has been moved in pursuance of the Act we passed last year which requires that the period of Summer Time shall in future be fixed every year by an Order in Council. The period fixed this year is from 14th March to 31st October—roughly seven and a half months. There will be no period of double Summer Time this year. Last year, at a very early stage in the year, when as a matter of fact the climatic conditions did not make it sensible to talk about either single Summer Time or double Summer Time we arranged, in the Measure we placed before the House at that time, for a period of double Summer Time.
At a subsequent period of the year, with my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture, I met a deputation of farmers from Scotland who laid before us the very serious difficulties which confronted agriculturalists, particularly North of the Tweed, in carrying on their industry while double summer time was in operation. The Prime Minister gave an assurance last year that we would not fix a period of double Summer Time this year, and this order carries out that undertaking. The period now fixed is one which has the general assent of both sides of industries, other than agriculture. I think it would


be too much to say that this order has the enthusiastic support of persons engaged in agriculture in this country.

Major Sir Thomas Dugdale: Far too much.

Mr. Ede: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland have been in touch with the agricultural communities for which they are respectively responsible, and those communities recognise the general difficulties which confront the country and against which this order assists us in some way to take action. I hope that this Measure, carrying as it does general good will, where there is not acquiescence, will find favour with the House. We have endeavoured to minimise the injuries—or perhaps inconvenience is the better word—that we inflict on the agricultural community, and I want to thank them for the very helpful spirit in which they have met us in this matter.

8.53 P.m.

Sir T. Dugdale: I accept at once the spirit in which the Home Secretary has moved this order, but I would ask him why is it necessary every year to state the dates by an Order in Council? Would it not be much better to go straight back to the pre-war custom, and have the dates as established by the old 1925 Act? The Home Secretary has explained that this year the period of Summer Time is to be extended from 14th March to 31st October. He explained further that he was well aware of the difficulties which this extension will cause to the agricultural community throughout the country, especially to farmers in the North of England and North of the Tweed. I, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House, would answer him by saying that we equally realise that the arguments on the time that is best suited to Summer Time are very equally balanced; and that we do realise the force of the arguments from the industrial point of view for extending the summer period as is done in the order before the House.
My sole purpose in intervening at this stage is to impress upon the Home Secretary the importance the agricultural industry attaches to this matter, and to

express the hope that the statutory limitations on Summer Time, enacted in the 1925 Act, which limited the Summer Time period to the period from the third Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October, should be imposed again at the earliest possible moment. We perfectly understand that there is no question of amending this order now, and that we must either accept it or vote against it. It is certainly not my intention to ask my hon. and right hon. Friends to vote against this order. I hope, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind the difficulties which this extended period does make for the agricultural industry. If, for any reason, he is convinced that it is necessary to extend the Summer Time period in future, then I would say, from the agricultural point of view, that it would be very much better if the period were extended at the beginning and not at the end. I would ask the Home Secretary to give his serious consideration in the future to this, that if it is necessary to extend Summer Time beyond the dates prescribed in the 1925 Act, he should limit the period so that it expires on the first Saturday in October, the date at which Summer Time ended according to the original Act passed by this House. That would be better than 31st October as suggested by this order.
The extended period does cause a very great deal of inconvenience. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for expressing his thanks to the farmers and the attitude they have taken in regard to this order, but I would ask him in future years to return to the dates of the 1925 Act. We do not want to have these orders year by year to fix the dates. Why should we have these orders? Is it because the Government like issuing orders to be passed through this House for their amusement, or for any other purpose? If we could have the original provisions of the old Act, it would be much better for the agricultural industry in all parts of the country, especially in the North of England and North of the Tweed.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Ede: Perhaps I might intervene here, with the leave of the House. I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for what he has said, but I would point out that the 1925 Act was repealed last year, and it would involve introducing a new


Act to bring it back into existence. Without making any promises with regard to next year, I am not unhopeful that, when the period of economic stress in the heavy industries has passed, we may be able to return to orders which would conform approximately to the dates in the 1925 Act. I think everybody regards those as stating approximately the appropriate period of Summer Time in times which can be called normal. I should not like it to be thought that the promotion of this order this year is an indication that this is regarded as the more or less permanent period for Summer Time in future years. Each year will have to be judged on its merits. As, of course, the matter has to be brought before the House by this positive procedure, the House can be assured that each year it will have an opportunity of expressing its views on the matter.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. James Hudson: The not very crowded state of the benches, particularly in regard to hon. Members for agricultural constituencies in Scotland and England, leaves some room for an expression of disappointment. It appears that in this order we have dropped permanently the Double Summer Time proposal which has operated hitherto. As Double Summer Time was referred to by the Home Secretary when introducing the order, I would say that there are many people in constituencies other than agricultural constituencies who will consider themselves at a very great disadvantage because of the loss involved under this order. The Government might perhaps have given some further consideration——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I have allowed the hon. Member considerable latitude in letting him go so far. There is nothing about Double Summer Time in this order, so he cannot discuss it further.

Mr. Hudson: I am referring only to what was said by the Home Secretary when he recited the fact that under this order Double Summer Time would disappear. I will not dwell further on that, but I do not think the order will commend itself to southern constituencies, such as those around London, which derive great advantage from procedure other than that adopted in this order——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member cannot get round my Ruling in that way. There is nothing about Double Summer Time in the order, and the hon. Member is out of Order in discussing it or referring to it.

Mr. Hudson: I am sorry that I cannot refer to it further, and I will let it go at that. As it stands, the order is unsatisfactory. If elaboration of the reasons I have given are out of Order in this Debate, I think that in the circumstances we might at any rate have had a further extension of single Summer Time——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is very ingenious, but if he pursues that line I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. Hudson: I should not think of contesting your Ruling, Sir. If in debating this order, which has to do with the extension of Summer Time between two stated periods, I cannot refer to the fact that this is by no means a perfect order, and if I cannot say why it is not perfect, I bow respectfully and entirely to your Ruling, and have no alternative but to let it go at that. I do think that hon. Members for agricultural constituencies might have shown their complete acceptance of the change with an appearance of greater enthusiasm by their presence on these benches in larger numbers tonight.

Captain Crookshank: I cannot let the hon. Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson) make remarks of that kind. The point of view of the agricultural community has been put on behalf of those who sit on these benches by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Richmond (Sir T. Dugdale). I do not know whose point of view the hon. Member was putting, but he certainly failed to do it.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. Keenan: I think there is something to be said for the argument on the other side. I am one of those who has never liked Summer Time. I think we should have Greenwich Time, and that we should leave it at that. I hope that when the opportunity comes, it will not be necessary to have Summer Time at all. I do not see any


advantage in it, and I should like to see it stopped. I cannot agree with what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson), because I do not think that Summer Time is worth having at any time.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in pursuance of the provisions of Section 2 of the Summer Time Act, 1947,

praying that the Summer Time Order, 1948, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 9th February.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved: That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Snow.]

Adjourned accordingly at Seven Minutes past Nine o' Clock.